1750-1799 Symphony

Question 1

Name 7 symphonies ca.1750-1799.

Answer 1

1. Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, Farewell (1772)
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.25 in g, K183 (1773)
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.35 in D “Haffner”, K385 (1782)
4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.40 in g, K550 (1788)
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.41 in C “Jupiter”, K551 (1788)
6. Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G “The Surprise” (1791)
7. Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 101 in D “Clock” (1793)

Question 2

Piece: symphony by Haydn, 45

Answer 2

• Composer: Joseph Haydn
• Title: Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, Farewell
• Date: 1772
• It was written for Haydn’s patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, while he, Haydn and the court orchestra were at the Prince’s summer palace in Eszterháza. The stay there had been longer than expected, and most of the musicians had been forced to leave their wives back at home in Eisenstadt, so in the last movement of the symphony, Haydn subtly hinted to his patron that perhaps he might like to allow the musicians to return home: during the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left (played by Haydn himself and the concertmaster, Alois Luigi Tomasini). Esterházy seems to have understood the message: the court returned to Eisenstadt the day following the performance.
• The last movement begins as a characteristic Haydn finale in fast tempo and cut time, written in sonata form in the home key of F-sharp minor.
• The music eventually reaches the end of the recapitulation in a passage that sounds very much as if it were the end of the symphony, but suddenly breaks off in a dominant cadence.
• What follows is a long coda-like section, in essence a second slow movement, which is highly unusual in Classical symphonies and was probably quite surprising to the Prince. This is written in 3/8 time, modulates from A major to F-sharp major, and includes a bit of stage business that may not be obvious to a listener hearing a recorded performance: Several of the musicians are given little solos to play, after which they snuff out the candle on their music stand and take their leave; other musicians leave without solos.
• As the number of remaining instruments dwindles, the sound emanating from the orchestra gradually becomes audibly thinner. The first chair violinists remain to complete the work. The ending is a kind of deliberate anticlimax and is usually performed as a very soft pianissimo.

Question 3

Piece: symphony by Mozart, 25

Answer 3

• Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Title: Symphony No.25 in g, K183
• Date: 1773
• This is one of two symphonies Mozart composed in G minor, sometimes referred to as the “little G minor”.
• Beyond the atypical key, the symphony features wide-leap melodic lines and rhythmic syncopation along with the jagged themes associated with Sturm und Drang. More interesting is the emancipation of the wind instruments in this piece, with the violins yielding to colorful bursts from the oboe and flute.

Question 4

Piece: symphony by Mozart, 35

Answer 4

• Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Title: Symphony No.35 in D “Haffner”, K385
• Date: 1782
• Commissioned by the Haffners, a prominent Salzburg family, for the occasion of Sigmund Haffner’s ennoblement.
• The Haffner Symphony did not start its life as a symphony, but rather as a serenade to be used as background music for the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner.
• Sigmund Haffner, who had been mayor of Salzburg and who had helped them out on their early tours of Europe.
• Mozart later reworked this music into what we now know as the Haffner Symphony.
• The key is also indicative of the work’s serenade origins as all of Mozart’s orchestral serenades are scored in D major.
• Interestingly, Mozart places no repeat signs at the end of the exposition of the first movement. This goes against the standard sonata form convention of the day
• When providing his father, Leopold, with performance instructions for the “Presto”, his advice was that this movement should be played “as fast as possible”.

Question 5

Piece: symphony by Mozart, 40

Answer 5

• Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Title: Symphony No.40 in g, K550
• Date: 1788
• The first movement begins darkly, not with its first theme but with accompaniment, played by the lower strings with divided violas. The technique of beginning a work with an accompaniment figure and later became a favorite of the Romantics (examples include the openings of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto).
• The fourth movement opens with a series of rapidly ascending notes outlining the tonic triad illustrating what is commonly referred to as the Mannheim rocket.
• A remarkable modulating passage in which every tone in the chromatic scale but one is played, strongly destabilizing the key, occurs at the beginning of the development section. The single note left out is in fact a G (the tonic).
• Ludwig van Beethoven knew the symphony well, copying out 29 bars from the score in one of his sketchbooks.
• the opening theme of the last movement may have inspired Beethoven in composing the third movement of his Fifth Symphony.
• In the 1860s, composer Johannes Brahms obtained Mozart’s original score, “the crown of his manuscript collection.”

Question 6

Piece: symphony by Mozart, 41

Answer 6

• Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Title: Symphony No.41 in C “Jupiter”, K551
• Date: 1788
• the longest symphony Mozart wrote
• the five-voice fugato (representing the five major themes) at the end of the fourth movement. But there are fugal sections throughout the movement either by developing one specific theme or by combining two or more themes together, as seen in the interplay between the woodwinds. The main theme consists of four notes.
• Four additional themes are heard in the “Jupiter’s” finale, which is in sonata form, and all five motifs are combined in the fugal coda.
• In an article about the Jupiter Symphony, Sir George Grove wrote that “it is for the finale that Mozart has reserved all the resources of his science, and all the power, which no one seems to have possessed to the same degree with himself, of concealing that science, and making it the vehicle for music as pleasing as it is learned. Nowhere has he achieved more.” Of the piece as a whole, he wrote that “It is the greatest orchestral work of the world which preceded the French Revolution.”
• The four-note theme is a common plainchant motif which can be traced back at least as far as Josquin des Prez’s Missa Pange lingua from the sixteenth century. - “often requested his father Leopold to send him the latest fugue that Haydn had written.”

Question 7

Piece: symphony by Haydn, 94

Answer 7

• Composer: Joseph Haydn
• Title: Symphony No. 94 in G “The Surprise”
• Date: 1791
• The second of the twelve so-called London symphonies.
• Perhaps more than any other composer’s, Haydn’s music is known for its humor.
• Haydn’s music contains many jokes, and the Surprise Symphony includes probably the most famous of all: a sudden fortissimo chord at the end of the otherwise piano opening theme in the variation-form second movement.
• The second, “surprise”, movement, is an andante theme and variations in 2/4 time in the subdominant key of C major. The theme is in two eight-bar sections, each repeated. The repeat at the end of the first section is pianissimo with pizzicato in the lower strings to set up the surprise.

Question 8

Piece: symphony by Haydn, 101

Answer 8

• Composer: Joseph Haydn
• Title: Symphony No. 101 in D “Clock”
• Date: 1793
• The ninth of the twelve so-called London Symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is popularly known as The Clock because of the “ticking” rhythm throughout the second movement.
• The secondary theme, although more subtle than the primary theme, is very close to it, which makes this a monothematic exposition.
• The finale of the work is an amazing monothematic Rondo-Sonata. This means that the main theme and the secondary theme are similar, or in this case, almost identical, and the main theme is played every time a theme ends. Haydn vastly changes the main theme with each occurrence — something that is not done in rondo works. Even the bridges in between themes are similar to the main theme.