1764 – The Music part 2 - And then there are these

Symphonies	Key	Hob.	N.C.	H.R-L.	Instruments
	Eb	22	33	32	2 English Horns, 2 Horns & Strings
	A	21	34	31	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
	G	23	32	33	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
	D	24	35	34	Flute (only in the Adagio & the Trio) 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings

Not to give the impression here that Haydn was hung up on writing Church Symphonies; that's just me. He was busy writing all sorts of other music too. Like these two works which are more typical of the work he was doing at the time, which was raising the symphony out of the muck in which it was born.

Symphony #23 shares a Haydn legacy that would continue throughout his years as a symphony composer; his works in the key of G Major, for reasons inexplicable to me, anyway, are always among his most interesting. By way of example I offer #88, 92, 94 & 100 among the late symphonies, and among the earlier ones, this one, along with #47, 54 & 81. If you listen to a sampling of these (or already are very familiar with them) you will recognize some of his very finest symphonic works in this list. This one opens with a tremendously energetic Allegro which scarcely even pauses for breath in its forward rush. There are lots of dynamic fortes, and contrapuntal devices such as echoes and canonic sections to keep the ear busy. The Andante second movement, for strings only, is bound to be slightly anticlimactic after that opening, but it seems necessary to get things settled down again. To some extent, the 'normal' symphony suffers a bit from the same issue as the sinfonia da Chiesa in that there hadn't yet been devised a graceful means to shift the focus from the beginning to the end. One can hardly and reasonably say 'well, you could do it by not making the opening Sonata Allegro so good', could one? So it was a problem still to be worked out, although Haydn might not have viewed it that way, or even as a goal. It might have been something he eventually did because he felt artistically inclined that way, and it is only in modern times that we view it as a solution to a problem. As with many other of the list of G Major works above, the interesting effects derive from the minuet. This is a canon between the high voices and the low ones. The oboes and violins lead the way, and one measure behind the basses play the same parts, with the horns filling in the needed harmonies. The result was quite influential on Haydn's contemporaries, and still makes interesting listening for us, 240 years later!

Symphony #24 is also rather unique in some ways. The opening Allegro is so frenzied that it can almost be viewed as a mannerist experiment, one which Haydn didn't repeat. Robbins-Landon calls it 'controlled lunacy', and a review in London in the early 1780's, when it was first published there, calls Haydn's symphonic style as being 'full of phrenzy and fire…', quite probably based on this movement alone! Although to be sure, many of Haydn's non-da Chiesa symphonies of the 1760's had their share of 'phrenzy and fire' too! Moving on to the Adagio, we find what seems to be a flute concerto as one of the oboists has done a swap of instruments. Haydn doesn't start it with a ritornello like a concerto would do, but rather, with the solo flute. It is accompanied only by strings and a place is even left for a little cadenza should the soloist choose it. It is the sort of flute writing that makes one truly long for the missing/lost flute concerto of that period. The minuet has a very Austrian feel to it, it is based on Ländler (country dance) rhythms rather than the typical minuet one would expect. The trio brings the flute back, this time in a true trio with the two horns, also in Ländler style. The flutist must have loved this opportunity to show off! The finale is also quite interesting in that it is an early experiment in cyclic form. Haydn uses some motives from the first movement to close the work out. This was in no a standard procedure yet, as it would become in years to come. I'm not even sure if it was a first for Haydn, although I haven't necessarily heard it before. In any case, the shifting of some of that same frenetic energy from the beginning to the end does help to balance this work out just a bit. Since I am not a German critic of 176x, frenetic energy and non-courtly minuets make me very happy rather than shocked. Hope they will for you, too.

Next time, a look at the non-symphonic works of 1764. There are some gems there, too!

Thanks for reading!