Program Notes

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Symphony No. 104 in D Major “London”

Scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings

“This wonderful man never fails; and the various powers of his inventive and impassioned mind have seldom been conceived with more accuracy by the band, or listened to with greater rapture by the hearers, than they were on this evening.”

The critic for the Morning Chronicle had much to be enthusiastic about. The previous evening, May 4, 1795, a concert of music by Franz Joseph Haydn had taken place in London. It was a historic occasion. Not only was it the final concert of Haydn's contract, a contract that brought him back for a second time to the great city for a series of concerts featuring his music, it also turned out to be the world premier of what would be the great man's last symphony.

For many years, Haydn was employed as court composer to Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, a man whom Haydn had come to regard not only as an employer, but as a friend. There was much to do to satisfy the conditions of his employment, especially since the prince was a great music lover. Concerts were daily events at the prince's spectacular estate, and Haydn, besides his duty as court composer, had full responsibility for all musical activities. The music that was required of him couldn't stray very far from the established musical conventions of the time. When it did it was misunderstood and rejected out of hand. So Haydn met the prince's needs at court with his usual grace, charm and good nature. But even in such pleasant surroundings, genius can never be forced to conform to anyone else's expectations. It can never be contained, never reined in. Despite Haydn's well-deserved reputation as a kindly, benevolent man, a deep passion burned within him, and it could never have been quelled. So, somehow, in between his commitments, he found the time to compose the music he really wanted to write. He was an experimental composer by nature. Not merely a creator, but an innovator, an inventor. He re-worked established forms, came up with bold new harmonies, and created passages of complex rhythmic and melodic design. His music was full of life, full of wit, overflowing with charm and grace, beauty and good humor: his music was just like him.

As the years went by, his skill increased by leaps and bounds, and the freshness, the newness of his work never diminished. And that night in May of 1795, the 64-year-old Haydn proved beyond any doubt that the light of his genius still burned brightly, when the orchestra played for the first time his Symphony No. 104, “London.”

In a city such as London, where musical tastes were highly developed, and music-lovers knew what they wanted, Haydn didn't feel the need to write down to his audiences. They had already showered him with praise, accolades and a good deal of money. So Haydn set to work now composing with the kind of originality he was only allowed to employ before in his spare time. When the new symphony was ready it contained a wealth of great tunes, a remarkable facility for harmonic originality, a depth of feeling, stirring beauty and engaging humor, accomplished with the efficiency and economy that had always been his trademark. As the critic for the Morning Chronicle went on to say, “genius is not so totally neglected as some are too often apt to confirm.”

The first movement opens with a dramatic slow introduction that is one of the most intensely personal statements in all of Haydn's work. But the darkness present here is misleading. The sudden dynamic and harmonic shifts that characterize this introduction prove to be a perfect preparation for the wild ride that the movement suddenly becomes. The main theme is as sunny and carefree as the introduction was stark and sullen. Haydn is so taken with it, in fact, that he bases the entire movement around it. The development section carries the music into more dramatically intense territory, but it isn't long before the music comes to a brief, unexpected halt, and the main allegro theme reappears to bring us to a majestic finish.

The opening theme of the second movement is serenely beautiful. It contains an innocence that hides its almost indefinable form. The opening melody is treated to a series of variants, after which the main theme returns. It contains elements of both Rondo and Variation forms, without really being either one. But just like the first movement, it is full of dynamic, harmonic and rhythmic surprises, and ends in charming peacefulness.

The minuet, normally a light and gracious offering, is here given the grand treatment by Haydn. It is music of bold and majestic power, offset by a tender trio section punctuated by oboe and bassoon.

The finale fittingly returns Haydn to his great love of folk music. The rousing main theme is a Croatian ballad called Oj, Jelena , which the composer may have heard sung within the Croatian colony when he lived in Eisenstadt. But the keener listener will recognize that this is a tune bewailed by London street vendors accompanied by the words “Hot cross buns!” The movement as a whole is characteristically bold and bright, bringing to a brilliant close a brilliant body of symphonies that was to challenge and set new directions for the works in the form that were to come.