Symphony No.100 in G major (“Military”)

Of all the nicknames applied in one way or another to the Haydn symphonies, the “Military” label attached to No.100 in G - and used in writing even by the composer himself - is the most meaningful. It is an apt description of a prominent feature in the scoring of the work and at the same time it gives notice of a curiously hostile event in the second movement. Even so, and even though Britain was at war with France when the symphony was first performed in London in 1794, one can go too far in looking for military associations: the second subject of the first movement might have three notes in common with Johann Strauss’s Radetzky March but Haydn could hardly have been aware of that.

Full-scale, specifically military colouring is restricted to parts of the second and fourth movements. Something of the sound of the military band can be heard from not far into the G major slow introduction, however, at the pont where trumpets and timpani make their first entry to participate in a suddenly fierce assertion of C minor. It is notable too that the first subject of the Allegro, though anticipated by the strings in the introduction, is introduced by a wind trio of flute and two oboes. The same instruments reintroduce the same tune in D major just where the second subject is expected: this is one of Haydn’s little jokes, preparatory to admitting the real (and playful rather than march-like) second subject where it is less expected. Although the new theme dominates both the development, where it runs into a variety of minor keys, and the coda, it is only towards the end that it attracts the military panoply of trumpets and drums.

Given Haydn’s intention to surprise his London audience with a battery of what they thought of as “Janissary” or “Turkish” percussion instruments, it is scarcely credible that he should have chosen a movement from a Concerto for two hurdy-gurdies (written for the King of Naples in 1786) with which to do it. But that is what he did, presenting what was once a Romance as a march in C major, adding a pair of clarinets to the wind band and, after holding them in reserve for their brief but exotic first entry, making gratifyingly liberal use of his triangle, cymbals and big bass drum. Most extraordinary of all, he supplied a new ending with a gruff trumpet fanfare and an aggressive diversion into A flat before making an ultimately triumphant return to C major.

To compensate for a comparatively brisk second movement, the Menuet is comparatively moderate in tempo, unusually elaborate in structure and correspondingly ceremonial in colour. The Finale, for all the popularity of its main theme (it was appropriated for a “Scottish country dance” called Lord Cathcart), is no light-hearted entertainment either. In his contrapuntal development Haydn seems at times to be of much the same serious mind as Mozart in the finale of the “Jupiter” Symphony, while the modulations and the chromatic harmonies he applies to his main theme - though reassuringly contradicted in the end by bright trumpets and carefree percussion - are more than a little thought-provoking.