Download Franz Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 83 in G minor, “La Poule” (1732

Franz Joseph Haydn
(1732 – 1809)
Symphony No. 83 in G minor, “La Poule”
Duration: 25”
In 1779, after having worked as court composer and Kappelmeister for the Esterhazy family of
Hungary for the better part of two decades, the invaluable Joseph Haydn was able to renegotiate his
employment contract for better terms. Prior to this time, all of the compositions he produced while in
the family’s service belonged to his employer, and he was forbidden to publish. This exclusive
privilege of a private music collection was difficult to enforce, and savvy - or reckless - musicians
passing through the court took to copying out scores by hand and selling them to publishing houses,
essentially creating a black market of Haydn scores that circulated Europe, with varying degrees of
accuracy and quality. It was in this ‘underground’ form that the composer first became known to
many audiences, including those in Paris. Figuring that if it would happen anyway then it should be
done within his control and for his own financial gain, the composer gained the ability to publish his
compositions, and to accept outside commissions. Shortly thereafter, the major request of six
symphonies arrived from Paris, and the compensatory offer was evidently nothing to scoff at.
The six symphonies, numbered 82 through 87, were written for the aristocratic audience, and
presented by an orchestra with ties to the Freemasons. This was much larger than his home
ensemble at Esterháza, meaning that the composer was now afforded more choice not only in
instrumentation, but in dynamic and textural contrast. Like a painter’s first canvas and full palette of
tints after years of smaller, albeit detailed, sketches, this orchestra made for an intriguing new tool.
The symphony begins with a dramatic curtain-raiser: atop a strident wind chord and propulsive
ostinato rhythm in the low strings, a G minor arpeggio launches upward. The first two are predictable
enough steps, but we trip on a jarring C-sharp, forming an acerbic tritone against the tonic before
resolving upward to D, giving us a jolt right from the start. In the inevitable descent immediately
following the initial rise of the opening arpeggio, the composer introduces a dotted figure which
functions as a signifiant motto throughout the movement, appearing in a variety of contexts. While at
first its character may seem stern and martial, this same rhythmic motive later accompanies the
second theme of the movement, and, in that context, especially when scored in the solo flute, it
appears quite humorous. In fact, in the initial performances of the symphony, some in the audience
noted a “pecking” quality to the material, and to the playful secondary theme, leading to its
nickname La Poule, or “the hen.” Haydn’s capacity to transform the same material into a variety of
characters while still preserving cohesive unity is among his greatest attributes.
A charming second movement in a triple meter is filled with surprises of its own. With his new,
larger ensemble, the composer’s ability to create dramatic contrast in dynamics - the forte end now
more extreme - makes for some startling outbursts that we may not expect from an innocent
Andante movement.
Each of the final three movements demonstrate a collective unity in their metrical feel. A triple
meter Andante leads to a graceful minuet, which is then followed with a lively finale in compound
meter: a playful close in a jig-like dancing character.
Robert Schumann
(1810 – 1856)
Concerto for Piano in A minor, Op. 54
Duration: 30”
Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor: a love letter in music, its dedicatee addressed in the
first four tones of the opening theme in the oboe: Clara. In Italian, Chiara. In the German language,
the pitch “B” is expressed as “H.” Schumann gives us, in three descending notes, the last repeated,
the name of his wife: C - B - A - A: C - Hi - Ar - A. It certainly would not be the first time Schumann,
steeped in literature, toys with puns and secret codes, and Clara’s persona is written all over this
work. Unlike her contemporary Franz Liszt’s flashy showmanship, Clara was more concerned with
expressivity and introversion in her playing. This concerto, even in the first movement’s written
cadenza - where a soloist would usually “show off” - eschews self-serving virtuosity in favor of
thoughtful and emotive expression. In fact, Schumann was reluctant to call it a concerto, and it
began as a two-part fantasy, its intermezzo and finale unified as one single movement (the attacca
bridge remains intact).
Before Clara’s motto and the opening theme, Schumann gives us a jolt: the orchestra and piano
sound a strident E minor chord, which harmonically speaking has little to do with A minor. The solo
piano, in a fanfare-like progression through F major and D minor before finally ushering in the
cadence to A minor, takes the leading role, guiding the orchestra home. While the soloist’s entry in
the opening bar was not a brand-new concept in Schumann’s time (Mozart explored the idea in one
concerto, and Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto set a precedent), it was still relatively rare: in
Schumann’s case, a statement of tight integration between soloist and orchestra, the roles of leader
and follower often shifting.
Throughout the movement, Schumann seems to obsess over the descending “C-B-A” motto,
repeating and transforming it into myriad guises: keys both major and minor, and even wearing the
mask of A-flat major: its theme, presented in the solo clarinet, floating gracefully in 6/4 meter. The
solo piano seems powerfully capable of manipulating the orchestra. After a complex development,
we hear the oboe theme again, in its familiar context from the opening. Much that follows seems as
it was before, including a sojourn in C major, until one utterly shocking F# at the bottom of the
piano’s descending scale, where we should hear an F natural. The orchestra follows the piano’s lead!
They spend a few (rather awkward) measures in B minor, before finally settling on A, the expected
destination. In using the startling ‘B’ to connect the keys of C down to A, Schumann has spelled C-BA, now in broad brushstrokes. What’s more, it seems as though the pianist (read: Clara) insisted on
it.
An intermezzo is a rarity in a concerto, though it is quite common in the theater. Schumann
refers to the brief intermediary movement by this title perhaps because its primary function is to
offer a brief “breath” from the intensity of the opening movement: its primary melody not a
descending sigh, but an ascending lift. It flows gracefully and effortlessly into a truly magical
passage. Following the timid decay of playful rising figures, the Clara motto resounds in a rich wind
chorale, in E major. The piano, again playfully, interrupt the wind’s resolution with twinkling
arpeggios, creating a momentary, passing dissonance. Soloist and winds converse, until deciding to
dive right into a boisterous and celebrating final movement in A major, its primary theme a
triumphant fanfare, playing against a humorously pompous second theme, through to its grand
finale: an emphatic “With love, Robert” to close out this love letter.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756 – 1791)
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
Duration: 30”
It was in a blaze of creative energy that Mozart wrote his 40th symphony. In the span of about
two months in the summer of 1788, Mozart completed not only this middle symphony, but the 39th
and 41st, working at a brisk pace. Conductor and scholar Nikolaus Harnoncourt has even suggested
that the thematic similarities and harmonic relationships reveal their conception as a single,
expansive symphonic unit, akin to an enormous instrumental oratorio. While theoretical, we may
wonder at the interconnectedness of this ‘trilogy’ of symphonies, born in a single stroke of genius.
This middle child is in several ways the strangest of the trio. Its minor key, shared only with the
25th, is itself exceptional among Mozart’s symphonies. It also lacks the trumpets and tympani to
boldly accentuate certain moments. Throughout much of this symphony, the tone is tender and
pensive, and far more introspective than extroverted. It may be the most forward-looking of Mozart’s
symphonies, embodying the emotional gravitas and self-reflection of Romanticism, while retaining
balance, poise, and restraint: what Robert Schumann called “a Grecian lightness and grace.”
The symphony’s strangeness is clear from the start: a faint pulsation hums in the violas before
any trace of a theme emerges. That ubiquitous melody in the violins seems hesitant, lurching and
withdrawing three times before propelling from its first two tones, testing the violas’ momentum and
eventually floating along its moving stream. The theme’s calm quality, and the sly, downward-sliding
chromatic foil that comes later, hardly prepare the intensity of the development, in which forceful
utterances exchange with meek whimpers of the reluctant two-note gesture from the opening. The
violins, afraid to be noticed, sneakily usher in the recapitulation behind the backs of the woodwinds,
recalling their opening melody. A new voice, the solo bassoon, subtly hints that something is not
quite right… and soon after, Mozart veers far off course, unexpectedly launching into a complex
fugue, perhaps alluding to his fascination with the contrapuntal music of J.S. Bach.
The two middle movements are a pair of opposites, both defying expectation. The “slow
movement” is neither stagnant nor especially slow, floating atop sub-surface rhythmic activity. With
its grace and lilt, it evokes a stately dance in character, albeit not in form. The subsequent
movement is a true minuet in form, though hardly in character: forceful, heavy, dramatic, and
tempestuous.
Mozart continues to toy with convention in the finale. Rather than treating us to a light,
effervescent rondo, he instead opts for a robust and weighty movement in sonata form, for which he
saves the most perplexing passage in the entire symphony, and perhaps in any instrumental work of
the classical era. At the start of the development, every string and woodwind, scored in octaves,
cycles through a chromatic “tone row” of eleven pitches (the only one missing, cleverly, is the tonic
G). Abrupt silences punctuate this disorienting cycle, which temporarily upends our sense of tonality.
We might foresee Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue or Schoenberg’s serialism in this boldness, from which
Mozart emerges with yet another grand fugue: the composer looking both to past and future.
- Program Notes by Patrick Jankowski