Day 18: Bam!

HaydnCD18I was enthralled by Symphony No. 61 in D within its first 20 seconds.

The symphony opens with a burst of instruments — bam! — and then there’s a stuttering, a chattering, a dancing of strings building up to another full-instrument burst — bam! Then, oboe and bassoon enter the dance. Things really get rocking at the :30 mark when it sounds like bursts of fireworks. It’s bam! bam! bam! bam! syncopated around the dancing strings and the serenading, oboe, bassoon, and flute. These are some of the most stirring seconds I’ve yet heard from Haydn. This is hair-raising, truly invigorating craftsmanship.

Well, here it is. Listen for yourself. This is exactly the same performance to which I’m listening this morning:

Same conductor  (Adam Fischer), same orchestra (Austro-Hungarian Orchestra).

Antony Hodgson, author of The Music of Joseph Haydn: The Symphonies, describes it this way in the chapter titled “The Middle and Pre-Paris Symphonies” (pages 90, 91):

The first of the line is Symphony No. 61 in D – an excellent, large-scale example with flute, two each oboes, bassoons and horns, plus timpani and strings, to which a keyboard continuo can contribute little. The first movement opens with a violent crash and after a few moments when a gracious theme is stated, the full orchestra grasps the initial chord and hammers it out again and again with furious insistence. This is a long movement and the rich development is full of surprises in tone-colour, with lyrical passages pulled up short by driving rhythms supported by winds. Haydn also has some fun with the second horn by putting it low in its register…

The Adagio is ineffably peaceful. The youthful fires still glow but this is clearly the writing of a mature composer – as one might expect from a man by now in  his mid-forties.

The Finale is a jolly galop. Prestissimo is the marking and 6/8 the time signature.

I like my “bam!’ verbiage better.

The Vivace tempo of this Movement I is unlike other opening movements in Haydn’s symphonies I’ve heard to date. At least to my ears. This one seems to have an exuberance, a playfulness, an unbridled sense of joy that helps make Symphony No. 61 in D a standout composition, one that I’ll relish re-hearing in the years ahead.

It’s interesting to note that Symphony No. 61 in D was composed in 1776 when Haydn was 44 and America was just being born. So this symphony – which sounds like the Classical equivalent of Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” (“bombs bursting in air”) — is as old as the United States, and still being played today.

Movement IV (“Presissimo”) sounds like a Max Steiner score for a movie like Errol Flynn‘s classic 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood. It’s playful and somewhat comical.

Symphony No. 62 in D was composed in 1780 or 1781. Haydn was 48 or 49.

By comparison to Symphony No. 61, I can’t help but think Symphony No. 62 is lesser. It just doesn’t grab me the way its older brother did. It’s probably a fine symphony. But it’s not stirring and exciting.

Maybe the near-50-year-old Haydn was running out of steam. (I’m kidding, of course. Haydn lived for another 30 years and composed another 46 symphonies.)

KhourremSymphony No. 63 in C “La Roxelane” Versione Seconda is an interesting composition. It’s grand, stately, and mature. Named for Roxelane, “the influential wife of Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire,” this symphony’s Allegretto second movement (“La Roxelane”) is, I think, it’s best. Heavy on strings, it has a Tchaikovsky feel to it to me, sort of like something from The Nutcracker Suite. Since Tchaikovsky lived from 1840-1893 it’s possible he heard Haydn’s symphony No. 63 many times. I’m not suggesting the two creative endeavors are similar in any way other than their feel to me. Haydn’s Movement II has a light, kind of Russian feel to it — to my ears, anyway.

But, as I said at the outset, I’m no musicologist.

I just had a chuckle.

When I returned from filling up my mug with more Light Roast coffee, I looked down and noticed that my desktop image is a photo of Iron Maiden that I took when they played in Nashville in September, juxtaposed against a book about Haydn’s symphonies.

I don’t see any discrepancy here. It’s like the Jeff Goldblum version of The Fly. Only this is HaydnMaiden instead of Brundlefly.

If you hear me say, “Help me” in a high-pitch, insect-like voice then you can be concerned.

Until then, I’ll just enjoy my musical mash-ups.

HaydnMaiden

 

3 thoughts on “Day 18: Bam!

  1. You are no musicologist? Well, I beg to differ. Perhaps not one with a degree, (goodness knows you have enough degrees of various sorts, anyway) but you most certainly are involved in musicology. Anyone who spends time researching, learning about, enjoying the depth of music is a musicologist of sorts. And you are the sort who makes it interesting :>)

  2. “Haydn also has some fun with the second horn by putting it low in its register…”

    I loved playing second horn. Second horn parts are often harder or more interesting than first horn. There are some pieces where the second horn gets the solo part. In most orchestras, you’ll find that the first and second horn are usually equally good players. Sometimes the second horn goes to a player who is better in the lower registers. I’ve also played fourth horn parts that were incredibly low, mirroring the bassoon parts.

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