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Symphony No. 92 in G Major. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was an Austrian composer of
the Classical period. His contibutions to musical form have earned him the epithets
"Father of the Symphony'' and "Father of the String Quartef'. Haydn spent rnuch of his
career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterhary family at their rsmote estate. Until the
latler part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he
was, as he put it, 'Torced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely and for
much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.
Haydn completed hts Syrnphony Na. 92,popularly known as the Oxford Symphony, in 1789 as one
of a set of three symphonies that had been commissioned by the French Court d'Ogny. The symphony is
called the "Oxford" because he reportedly conducted it at a ceremony in l79l in which he was awarded an
honorary doctorate by Oxford University.
In order to create a more entertaining movement for the listener, in the third movement, Haydn
composed the minuet with phrases of six measures as opposed to the normal four-measure phrase and
added syncopations and stops. A11 of these qualities were found to be humorous by the audiences of
Haydn's time because they were so unusual.
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Synqhony No. 2 in E ninor, Op. 27. Sergei Rachmaninotr(1873-1943) was a Russian
pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic perio{ some of whose works are
among the most popular in the classical reperioire. Bom into a nnxical family, he took up
the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had
composed several piano and orchesral pieces by this time. In 1897, following the critical
reaction to his Syrrphany Na. 1, he entered a four-year depression and composed little until
successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto
No. 2 in 1901, which won the Glinka Award,
At the time his Symphony No. 2 was composed, Rachmaninoff had had two successful seasons as
the conductor of the Imperial Opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He considered himself frst and
foremost a composer and felt that the performance schedule was detracting from his time to compose. He
then moved his wife and infant daughter to Dresden, Germany, to spend more time composing and to also
escape the political tumult that would put Russia on the path to revolution. Rachmaninoff still lacked
confidence in his writing. He was very unhappy with the first draft of his Second Symphony but after
months of revision he finished the work and conducted the premiere in 1908 to great applause. The work
eamed him another Glinka Award ten months later. The triumph regained his sense of self-worth as a
symphonist. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family moved to the United States, first
to New York City, and later, in 1942 to Beverly Hil1s, California where one month before his death in
1943, he acquired American citizenship.
The manuscript of the Symphony No. 2 had been thought lost, until its discovery in the estate of a
private collector inZAA4. It was authenticated by Geoffrey Norris. It contains material that has not found
its way into any published edition. The manuscript became the property of the Tabor Foundation, and was
on pefinanent loan to the British Library. In May 2A14, the manuscript was auctioned by Sotheby's for
1,202,500 pounds.
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