Sounding Together #26: F.J. Haydn, Symphony #102 in B-flat Major (1795)
The story goes that the London audience was so excited to see Haydn that they crowded to the front of the house to get close to the composer, leaving the middle of the auditorium largely unoccupied, so that when the chandelier, for some reason, fell into the audience, no one was seriously hurt. The event was lauded as a miracle, so much so that the nickname “Miracle” was given . . . to Haydn’s 96th symphony performed some three years earlier, because history gets things wrong sometimes. But in 1794, Haydn was at the height of his London popularity. His concerts were widely attended, his symphonies kept getting better and better. But after the technical and musical mastery demonstrated in the Clock symphony, this unnamed symphony seems relatively simple in comparison, a return to the basics of symphonic composition in a way.
In fact, there’s something of a parallel history between this, the first of Haydn’s last three symphonies, and Mozart’s Symphony #39, the last of his three symphonies. As I mentioned before, last symphonies are of some interest to me, as they say a lot about the composer’s mindset at that point in his or her life. And this symphony, just like Mozart’s #39, is an exercise in form, a return to the symphony at its purest, doing exactly what it was meant to do: impress. Haydn had successfully made the symphony something to be taken seriously, particularly when the symphony came from him. And with Mozart dead and Beethoven still in his early life as a composer, Haydn was the greatest living composer at that time.
There’s something very easy to like about the composer at this time in his life. I mentioned earlier that Mozart’s last symphonies were obviously written in attempt to continue defying expectations, to keep topping himself. He was writing for his life, and indeed, there is a kind of desperation to his last works that Haydn’s final symphonies don’t have. We’re looking at two different types of impressive. For Mozart, he was impressive for his incredible talent and his incredible drive. For Haydn, though, he was impressive due to the depth of his experience. This is work from a composer who’s been doing what he’s been doing for so long and so well, that he can write an impressive symphony without hardly having to try.
The first movement begins with Haydn’s standard slow introduction, this one alternating between strong solid chords and lighter moments of some harmonic dissonance, providing both a dynamic and stylistic contrast to the music, something that will keep coming back throughout the movement. After a light flute arpeggio, the movement plunges into the fast and lively sonata, the first theme of which is a rush of notes and a flurry of strings. After a lengthy transition, which muddles the key as transitions are meant to do, the second theme returns to the intro’s alternation between strong chords and lighter moments. Remember that the key word here is “contrast.” That’s what the two themes of a sonata are meant to do, provide a contrast to each other. Haydn, here, is taking this idea a step further and providing contrast within the second theme itself. Every few measures, there’s a new surprise. (Remember, Haydn is a man who loves surprises.) Finally, an exciting codetta brings the exposition to a close.
The development section begins with the second theme, before doing some work on the first theme, and then going into the standard fluctuation of keys, but it seems even more muddled than usual. The development section, here, is doing what it was always meant to do: develop the themes from the exposition. Mozart often, and even Haydn occasionally, introduced new material and developed that, but Haydn is sticking pretty much to his original ideas here. Haydn also plays around with keys, as the music seems drift in and out of tonality and has to be forced back into place. Then the opening theme seems to return, but it’s in the wrong key, and is soon interrupted by more modulations, and a few more false starts, before the true recapitulation begins, moving through the first and second themes in B-flat. Finally, one more statement of the original theme is tacked onto the end before the last coda brings the movement to a close, a trick Haydn borrowed from Mozart’s later symphonies.
The other three movements continue in the lighter style that those movements were typically written in those days. The second movement is a transcription of music from a previous work, which takes the simple three-part form that Haydn favored for his second movements, but with a slightly less dramatic middle section than usual. This music is very dream-like and serene, and is another instance where you don’t want to analyse the music so much as listen, which is generally what second movements were supposed to do following the intellectual first movements. The minuet and trio is straightforward in form, but does play around with expectations of beat and meter, with the downbeat being occasionally difficult to ascertain just by listening, and the phrasing often becoming uneven. The trio offers a stylistic contrast and is more chromatic with the winds providing some pleasant harmonies above the melody. We see Haydn playing around with color as well as beat in this dance number. The finale sees Haydn returning to his trademark quirkiness, with a somewhat odd little melody providing the main theme of a rondo, interrupted throughout by dramatic episodes, giving this finale many different moods. This is the point in Haydn’s career and where he seems to be using his symphony finales to really pull out all the stops and have some fun. This finale doesn’t have the intellectual rigor of the first movement, the lovely interplay of harmonies of the second, or the dance-like simplicity of the third. It’s just its own thing, a fast-paced, exciting, and fun piece of music to close out another impressive symphony.
Haydn has, by this time, fallen into a predictable pattern with his symphonic form, and yet he continues to add the little touches to his music that made him so popular, particularly in London. I said at the beginning that this symphony was comparatively simple, but I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. I think the main difference between this symphony and the ones on either side of it is that there’s nothing about it to earn it a specific nickname. It doesn’t have the march-like percussive quality of the Military symphony, or the ticking of the Clock symphony, or the dramatic drumroll of the Drumroll symphony. And that, in and of itself, is telling us something. It’s telling us that though Haydn enjoyed his little gimmicks and tricks, he didn’t need them. He is still able to use the symphony as the canvas it was intended to be, and give us an impressive collection of decades of experience as a composer. Even if it doesn’t lend itself to a particular nickname, this symphony is still an accomplishment from someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.