Haydn's Drumroll Symphony

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach spent his early years in Weimar and Cöthen, until his father moved the family to Leipzig in 1723. Johann Sebastian’s new position as Kantor of Leipzig’s Thomaskirche was, at least in title, a step down from his prior post as a Kapellmeister, but the educational prospects for the Bach children at the Thomas Church’s school and at Leipzig University were part of the appeal of the move. Emanuel (as his family called him) developed into an exceptional keyboard player as a teenager, and he performed regularly with the Collegium Musicum, an amateur group founded by Telemann in his student days and directed by J.S. Bach starting in 1727. 

Before embarking on a career in music, Emanuel followed the model of Telemann—his godfather—and took courses in law at Leipzig University. He secured his first major job in music in 1740, joining the Berlin court of King Frederick II of Prussia as a harpsichordist. After twenty-seven years in the royal court, Bach won the highly coveted post of director of music for Hamburg’s five principal churches. His predecessor was none other than the recently deceased Telemann, who had occupied that powerful position for forty-six years. Bach excelled in his new role directing church music, adding to his established reputation as a master of keyboard-instrument composition and pedagogy. 

Bach’s keyboard sonatas and concertos overshadow his other instrumental works, including about twenty symphonies. He scored most of the symphonies for string orchestra, in some cases adding winds later. By contrast, his four Orchester-Sinfonian (Orchestral Symphonies) from 1775-76 emphasized a strong and independent wind ensemble from the outset. These works were not quite cutting-edge at the time of their composition—Haydn, his junior by eighteen years, had already completed some sixty symphonies, full of formal innovations—but Bach still had a unique voice and a distinct approach to ensemble textures.

Bach’s Sinfonia in D, the first in the set of Orchester-Sinfonian, is a lean and effortless composition with an architectural clarity of ideas. The Allegro di molto first movement features an accelerating repeating note, encircled by an arpeggio theme in clean octaves. Breakout passages for small groups reinforce the spare, elemental aesthetic. The Largo movement is another model of economy, with a pastoral melody shared by flutes and lower strings, accompanied by a dry bass line (unadorned by harpsichord) and tasteful pizzicato comments from the violins. The Presto finale plays with a quick theme of half-step shakes, inserting droll interruptions that explore other half-step ascents. Like his father, Bach worked into his elder years in the style that suited him, even as tastes changed; it is a mark of the authenticity and intellectual clarity they shared that their music proved timeless.

AARON GRAD© 2012

Following the death of Haydn’s longtime patron Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy in 1790, the prince’s son and successor Anton curbed the court’s musical activities and reduced Haydn’s salary to a modest pension. Meanwhile, Johann Peter Salomon, a German violinist and impresario working in London, saw in Prince Nikolaus’s death an opportunity to lure the illustrious Haydn to England. Salomon offered Haydn a generous contract and, for the first time in decades, Haydn secured extended leave from his Esterhazy service. Haydn composed six symphonies for his initial trip to London in 1791–92 and added six more for a follow-up visit in 1794–95. 

Haydn and Salomon reached London on January 2, 1791. Haydn wrote, “My arrival caused a great sensation … I went the rounds of all the newspapers for three successive days. Everyone wants to know me.” Besides a busy schedule of socializing and teaching, Haydn prepared music for the upcoming spring concert season. Salomon’s orchestra of forty or so musicians offered mixed programs of symphonies, concertos, arias and chamber music, appearing each Monday in London’s Hanover Square Rooms.

The Symphony No. 95 was one of the first of the “London” Symphonies to reach the public, either on April 1 or more likely on April 28. This symphony differs from its companions in several respects: it is the only “London” Symphony set in a minor key; it is also the only one that did not begin with a slow introduction. Instead, it starts with a distinctive five-note unison figure, spread across four octaves in the strings and winds. The crucial ingredient in this figure is the ominous interval of a rising half-step. After the keynote C is sounded, there are four staccato notes: G rising a half-step to A-flat, and then F-sharp rising a half-step back to G. The sternness of this primary material is contrasted by the second theme in E-flat, which begins with a cheery jaunt down the major triad. The movement ends with that sunnier theme recast in C major, further brightened by passages from a solo violin, a part that would have been played by Salomon himself.

The Andante cantabile slow movement is a modified theme and variations. After a variation featuring solo cello, it takes a detour from its comfortable E-flat major tonality into the dark territory of E-flat minor, but this abortive variation stops short and circles back to the home key. In the final pass through the material, invigorated with running 32nd notes, whiffs of minor-key harmonies still arise.

The Menuet strikes up C minor again, but it is hardly fearful once the chuckling “crushed-note” figures enter. The contrasting trio returns to C major and once again features a solo cello, supported by plucked chords. The Vivace finale, also set in C major, continues the tug between major and minor leanings until it lands decisively on a major-key resolution. Contrapuntal passages recall the great fugal finale of Mozart’s great C-Major Symphony (No. 41, known as Jupiter), completed several years before Haydn left for London.

AARON GRAD© 2012

C.P.E. Bach’s Six Symphonies for String Orchestra were commissioned by a fascinating patron and man of letters: Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1733–1803). The van Swieten family was Dutch, but Gottfried spent his adolescence in Vienna, where his father was the personal physician to Empress Maria Theresa. From 1770 to 1777, van Swieten was the Dutch ambassador to the court of King Frederick II of Prussia, where C.P.E. Bach had long served as court harpsichordist; van Swieten studied composition during that time with Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a former student of J.S. Bach. Next, the baron succeeded his late father as the head of the Imperial Library in Vienna. At regular gatherings at his house, van Swieten arranged readings of oratorios by Handel, and he introduced his protégés—Mozart most significantly—to the fugues of Bach. He also formed a close partnership with Joseph Haydn, serving as the librettist for The Creation and The Seasons. His reach even extended to Beethoven, who dedicated his First Symphony to van Swieten in 1800.

Composed in 1773, C.P.E. Bach’s six sinfonias, or symphonies, reflect an older tradition that emerged from Italian overture style. Instead of four independent movements, as in most of Haydn’s symphonies, these sinfonias for string orchestra each contain three short sections, beginning and ending in fast tempos and moving to a slow section in the middle. 

The B-Minor Sinfonia confirms Bach’s reputation as the master of the Empfindsamer Stil (“Sensitive Style”), an approach to music that emphasized heartfelt, introspective emotion over flashy effects or inflated drama. The Allegretto opening becomes especially pensive toward the end, when drawn-out chords suspend the forward motion. The last held chord releases directly into the Larghetto section, set in a relaxed triplet pulse. The slow movement ends hanging on an unresolved chord, which is reiterated in the new Presto tempo of the closing section. The sharp dynamic contrasts and distinct separation of melodic and accompanying roles belong to the newer Classical style, but the driving figurations and echoing counterpoint reveal Bach’s Baroque pedigree.

AARON GRAD© 2012

After the successes of the 1791 and 1792 concert seasons presented with Johann Peter Salomon, Haydn would have been happy to stay in London. Instead, Prince Anton Esterhazy recalled Haydn to Austria, where he spent the next eighteen months, during which time, among other activities, he gave some lessons to the young Ludwig van Beethoven.

Haydn arranged a second London visit as soon as he could, and he began composing more symphonies in advance of his second visit, which began in February 1794. In all, he composed six more symphonies, bringing his “London” set to twelve and capping his lifetime total at 104. Most of the second batch of “London” symphonies added clarinets to the orchestration, and several featured notable effects that inspired nicknames for the works, as in the percussion arsenal of the Military Symphony (No. 100), the tick-tock accompaniment of The Clock (No. 101) and the iconic timpani lead-in that begins the Drum Roll (No. 103). 

Haydn stayed in London through the 1795 spring season. Salomon ceased his concert series that year, so Haydn instead joined with the “Opera Concerts” mounted by the violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti, whose even larger orchestra numbered around sixty players. The Symphony No. 103 debuted on that series on March 2, 1795.

London audiences were known to love a good spectacle (this was the city, after all, that had recently mounted a revival of Handel’s Messiah with eight hundred performers) and Haydn seemed to cater to their tastes with the bold and striking effects of his final symphonies. The introduction of the Symphony No. 103, with its ominous drum roll and suspenseful introduction, sets the stage for the boisterous body of the movement, which enters in what at first seems the wrong key and which bounces along in a syncopated 6/8 rhythm that obscures, for some time, exactly where the downbeat falls.

The slow movement takes the form of a double set of variations, alternating between variations on the initial minor-key theme and separate variations on a contrasting major-key theme. In the Menuet, echoes playfully elongate the opening statements. The contrasting trio section uses cascading entrances to put a different spin on the echo effect.

In a bookend to the unexpected start of the symphony, the Finale opens with an unaccompanied horn call figure, a motive that evokes hunting parties and the Austrian countryside where Haydn spent so many years in the service of Nikolaus Esterhazy. The main theme, with its prominent repeating notes, is in fact reminiscent of a Croatian folk song that Haydn may have heard at Eszterháza, Prince Nikolaus’s palace near the Austrian-Hungarian border, an area with a large Croatian enclave.

AARON GRAD© 2012