Symphony No.42 in D major

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Symphony No.42 in D major

Moderato e maestoso

Andantino e cantabile

Menuet: allegretto

Finale: scherzando e presto

Unlike some of the symphonies Haydn wrote at about the same time – when he was caught up in the “storm and stress” that briefly but violently swept through German poetry and music in the late 1760s and early 1770s – No.42 in D major is a generally sunny inspiration. It’s almost as if Prince Nicolaus Esterházy had asked his distinguished director of music to write something more cheerful, just this once. Certainly, the first movement, which begins like the overture to a comic opera, presents no emotional problems. Composed as it was in 1771, however, it was bound to reflect something of the artistic current of the time - even if only in the brisk attitude of the main theme, the nervous energy evident in the restless bowing of the violins, the dramatic treatment of the material in the middle of the movement and the emphatic part played by oboes and horns.

The wind instruments make a comparatively late entry in the slow movement, which is essentially an expression of the intimate kind of melody best left to muted strings. There is no shortage of instrumental colour even so. Just after they have introduced the second of the two main themes, the violins die away to near-silence – at which point the oboes intervene for the first time and, in the attenuated circumstances, to maximum effect. The horns are held in reserve still longer, to add their authority to the reassuring recall of the main theme after a rhythmically and harmonically disturbing episode for strings alone. Having lent their support to the oboes in that, they join them again in restating the second theme after another collapse into near-silence and in bringing the movement to a clear but modest conclusion.

Far from the stately dance that it was before it was adopted as a regular feature of the instrumental suite and developed by Haydn and his contemporaries for a different purpose in the symphony, the Menuet reverts to the brisk attitude of the first movement. Oboes and horns are prominent everywhere except in the central so-called “Trio” section, which is delicately scored for strings alone (and sometimes played by a solo quintet).

The most orignal and most entertaining movement of the four, the Finale begins like a theme and variations – the theme introduced by the strings, the first and second variations presented by wind and strings in turn. But then Haydn introduces a striking new idea which, although the first theme is recalled in a third variation for wind and strings together, insists on having the last word.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Symphony No.1 in C major, Op.21

Adagio molto - allegro con brio

Andante cantabile con moto

Menuetto: allegro molto e vivace

Adagio - allegro molto e vivace

When Beethoven started work on his First Symphony in C major he had been settled in Vienna for as long as seven years. Mozart, who had completed his last symphony in 1788, was dead, while Haydn – with whom the young composer had intermittently studied counterpoint after his arrival in Vienna in 1792 – hadn’t written a symphony for four years. Even so, Mozart’s and Haydn’s achievements in the symphonic repertoire loomed so large in Vienna that any ambitious young composer had to be prepared for his work to be judged by comparison with theirs. That could well be the reason why Beethoven abandoned his first efforts at a Symphony in C major in 1795. Four years later, however, the situation was rather different: nearing the age of 30 by now, he had recently accepted an equally daunting challenge by undertaking his first set of string quartets, Op.18, and had proved that he was accomplished enough and imaginative enough not to be intimidated by his predecessors.

The Symphony No.1 in C major which was completed and first performed in Vienna in 1800 was not, however, a bid for supremacy, still less an attempt to break the mould. Beethoven had taken contemporary taste so effectively into account, in fact, that within three years the work had been heard in Leipzig, Berlin, Breslau, Frankfurt, Dresden, Brunswick, and Munich. It is about the same length as Mozart’s last symphony, the “Jupiter,” also in C major, and is scored for an orchestra of similar proportions, with just one more flute than the earlier work.

Unlike the “Jupiter” but like many of Haydn’s symphonies it begins with a slow introduction which, again like some of Haydn’s, is a deliberate tease. But if Beethoven’s contemporaries wondered where the Adagio molto opening was taking them, they would have known exactly where they were at the point where the tempo changes to a lively Allegro con brio and the main theme bounces in on first violins. Although there is a more lyrical second main theme, introduced as a contrast by woodwind, the vigorous first theme is scarcely ever absent in one form or another and is a reliable guide through the harmonic adventures that follow in the middle of the movement. Again, if that central development section baffled Beethoven’s audience, the eventual recall of the main theme in its original form, on a chord heavily emphasised by the whole orchestra, would have put them right.

While Beethoven at this stage in his career was entirely capable of writing a full-scale slow movement, he settled here for an Andante cantabile con moto which was clearly intended to be more playful than profound – perhaps to avoid comparison with such inspirations as, say, the Andante cantabile of the “Jupiter” Symphony. The game is one of imitation, of a theme introduced by one group of instruments and taken up by others overlapping it in canon. The main theme is first heard in the opening bars on unaccompanied second violins, which are joined by violas and cellos and then by bassoons and double basses. With every entry of the theme the upward inflection of its first two notes becomes more and more familiar – a situation which Beethoven carries to an extreme by echoing the two-note phrase everywhere, expanding it, contracting it, turning it upside down, and incorporating it in the second main theme. A third theme, introduced by pattering violins over a repeated rhythm on the timpani, avoids contact with it but only until the middle of the movement, where they are obsessively thrust together, the rhythmic pattern now mainly on the strings and the two-note phrase on woodwind.

The Menuetto is so fast that all connection with the old dance is lost and, indeed, this is the last time Beethoven was to use the term in a symphony. The Scherzo title of the equivalent movement of the Second Symphony would acknowledge that the minuet was obsolete and that something more dynamic had taken its place - as it already has here in the pressured outer sections of a movement that carries the Menuetto title only out of respect for convention.

Although Beethoven’s contemporaries generally welcomed the First Symphony, some of them did have reservations about the wind scoring, which they found too noisy. Certainly, the composer had no inhibitions about applying woodwind and brass full-out when the occasion demanded, which was fairly often in this case. On its first entry, after the violins have briefly wound up the tempo from Adagio to Allegro molto e vivace, the main theme is quietly presented by the strings alone. But it is part of the character of the movement that delicate scoring like that should be offset by such an outburst as that which immediately confronts it. The central development section is organised to accommodate similar but even more intense contrasts and towards the end of the movement progress is all but halted by a particularly impressive display of colour. Activity is resumed by way of quiet little flourishes on violins and woodwind which invite one last assertion of brass and woodwind splendour.