Haydn’s classical symphony
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) went down in the history of world musical culture as the creator of a classical symphony. He is also credited with creating instrumental music and forming a stable composition of the symphony orchestra.
Haydn’s legacy is truly stunning! He is the author of 104 symphonies, 83 string quartets, 52 clavier sonatas, 24 operas … In addition, he created 14 masses and several oratorios. Everything that was written by the famous Austrian composer, one can feel unsurpassed talent and brilliant skill. It is no coincidence that his no less famous compatriot and friend Mozart said with admiration:
“No one is able to do everything: joke, and shock, cause laughter and deeply touch, and everything is as good as Haydn can.”
During the composer’s lifetime, Haydn’s work acquired European fame and was highly appreciated by his contemporaries. Haydn’s music is “music of joy and leisure”, it is full of optimism and effective energy, light and natural, lyrical and refined. Haydn’s composing fantasy seemed to know no bounds. His music is rich in contrasts, pauses and unexpected surprises. So, in the 94th symphony (1791), in the middle of the second movement, when the music sounds calm and quiet, powerful timpani strikes are suddenly heard just so that the viewer “does not get bored” …
Haydn’s symphonies are the true pinnacle of his work. The musical form of the symphony did not take shape immediately. Initially, the number of its parts varied, and only Haydn managed to create its classical type in four parts, each of which differed in the nature of the sounding music, tempo and methods of the theme development. At the same time, the four contrasting parts of the symphony mutually complemented each other.
The first movement of the symphony (Greek symphonia – consonance) was usually performed at a fast, impetuous tempo. She is active and dramatic, usually it conveys the main conflict of two images-themes. In a generalized form, it conveyed the atmosphere of the main character’s life. The second – slow, lyrical, inspired by the contemplation of beautiful pictures of nature – penetrated into the inner world of the hero. She is able to evoke in the soul reflections, sweet dreams and dreams of memories. In the third, which tells about the hero’s leisure and recreation hours, his communication with people, live, moving music sounded, initially ascending in its rhythms to the minuet – a calm salon dance of the 18th century, later to the scherzo – cheerful dance music of a joking nature. The quick fourth part summed up a kind of summary of the hero’s thoughts, highlighted the main thing in his understanding of the meaning of human life.But in form it resembled a rondo with alternating themes of the same refrain (refrain) and constantly updated episodes.
The general character of the music of Haydn’s symphonies was figuratively and poetically expressed by the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822):
“In the writings of Haydn, the expression of a childish joyful soul dominates; his symphonies lead us into boundless green groves, into a cheerful motley crowd of happy people, young men and women sweep before us in choral dances; laughing children are hiding behind trees, behind rose bushes, jokingly throwing flowers. A life full of love, full of bliss and eternal youth, as before the Fall; neither suffering nor sorrow – only one sweetly elegiac longing for a beloved image, which rushes in the distance, in the pink flicker of the evening, neither approaching nor disappearing, and while he is there, night does not come, for he himself is the evening dawn burning over the mountain and over the grove. “
In symphonic music, Haydn often used onomatopoeia: singing birds, murmuring a stream, giving visible sketches of the sunrise, “portraits” of animals. The composer’s music absorbed Slovak, Czech, Croatian, Ukrainian, Tyrolean, Hungarian, gypsy melodies and rhythms. There is nothing superfluous and accidental in Haydn’s music; it captivates listeners with its gracefulness, lightness and grace.
In the last years of his life, Haydn created his most significant musical works. In twelve “London Symphonies”, written in the 1790s. under the impression of trips to London, the composer’s philosophy and worldview found expression. Influenced by Handel’s music, he created two magnificent oratorios – The Creation of the World (1798) and The Seasons (1801), which increased the composer’s already noisy fame.
Haydn spent the last years of his life in seclusion, in a small house on the outskirts of Vienna. He wrote almost nothing. More often he indulged in memories of his life, full of bold undertakings and experimental searches.
