English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardner, conductor

Franz Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 103 in E-flat major, Drumroll (1795)

Life began anew for Joseph Haydn late in 1790 when the German-English impresario Johann Peter Salomon appeared without warning on the 58-year-old composer’s doorstep in Vienna. “I am Salomon from London and have come to fetch you,” he briskly announced. “Tomorrow we shall conclude an agreement.”

Since his employer Prince Nicholas Ester­házy had recently died, Haydn found himself free at last to pursue creative opportunities in the larger world, and he had long dreamed of traveling to England, where the flourishing musical life exceeded even Vienna’s. Salomon offered him a princely sum to come to London to write and perform symphonies and other works for his ambitious concert series. Though Haydn spoke virtually no English and was at an age when most men were either dead or retired, he accepted.

The first six of Haydn’s “London” Sym­phonies (Nos. 93–98) were composed and premiered during the composer’s first London sojourn of 1791–92. The composer immediately became the toast of London society, his concerts were packed, and Salomon made lots of money. In 1794–95, Haydn returned for another 18 months. Six more symphonies were born (Nos. 99–104): works that marked the pinnacle of the composer’s symphonic creations.

The Drumroll Symphony, No. 103, was premiered in London on March 2, 1795. By this time, Haydn knew exactly how to cast a spell on English audiences, and a major part of this was achieved by keeping them constantly stimulated, never allowing them to guess what was coming next. And he was expert at seizing listeners’ attention from the very beginning.

The first movement begins with the arresting drumroll for which the symphony is named. Murky bassoons and cellos then launch a mysterious Adagio that sets us up for a dark and troubled work; in its final moments, it even suggests it will be in ultra-serious C minor. But then Haydn pulls out the rug, as the Allegro con spirito’s sparkling, mirthful principal theme bounces in and confirms the key is E-flat major. Full of where’s-the-beat rhythmic tricks, it favors the orchestra’s higher, brighter colors. And it also contains a blithe ear worm of a tune, led by oboes.

A generous development section follows, whose highlights include a sped-up version of the mysterious Adagio music and a gorgeous contrapuntal arrangement of the oboe tune. The recapitulation section gradually grows stormy, providing the buildup to a reprise of the drumroll and the Adagio’s gloom before resolving into a high-spirited close.

The London audience so loved the second-movement that they demanded an encore. One of Haydn’s patented double-variations movements, it creates variations on two folk tunes from the region around the Esterházy castle: one in C minor and the other in C major. Haydn covers a marvelous variety of moods in his variations, ranging from the pastoral to the military; he even devises an enchanting solo variation for the concertmaster.

The Minuet manages to combine a heavy-footed peasant quality with courtly grandeur; it also makes delightful use of echo effects. The highlight of this movement, however, is the exquisite trio section. Its beautiful scoring for woodwinds and strings is made more ethereal by the rhythmic vagueness of its flowing phrases.

The first movement summoned our attention with the roll of the timpani. The finale does it with two horn calls, the second superimposed on a merry repeated-note theme. And this is the only theme Haydn needs to build this spectacular movement. As Michael Steinberg wrote, “Even by Haydn’s standards, this finale is a bravura display of making very little go very far.” Beyond typical high energy and wit, this is a final movement that achieves dazzling contrapuntal splendor, matched perhaps only by Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sinfonia concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra in E-flat major, K. 364 (1779)

We know very little about the genesis of Mozart’s sublime Sinfonia concertante, K. 364, the greatest of his string concerto works—neither the occasion for which it was composed nor exactly when it was written, though scholars have generally settled on the summer of 1779. But we know a great deal about the events that preceded it and surely contributed to Mo­zart’s maturation. From September 1777 to January 1779, the young composer traveled from one German princely court to another and finally to Paris in search of a lucrative musical post. While in Mannheim, he fell seriously in love for the first time and almost stopped his trip. In Paris, his mother, who was chaperoning him, fell ill and died. In the end, the job search failed, and Mozart returned empty-handed to Salzburg and his unrewarding drudgery at Archbishop Colloredo’s court. But his head was full of the wonderful music he’d heard in Mannheim and Paris and his heart with new emotions instilled by love and loss. The Sinfonia concertante was the beneficiary of all these experiences.

Works showcasing several solo instruments in an orchestral setting and known as sinfonia concertante were very popular in this period. But Mozart went far beyond the genre to create a true double concerto in which the violin and viola are treated as equally virtuosic partners. Mozart was an accomplished player of both instruments and was aware of the difficulties in balancing the darker, cloudier sound of the viola against the brilliant tone of the violin. Ingeniously, he made the viola play in D major, a key that utilizes the resonance of its open strings, but with its strings tuned one-half step higher so the notes sound in the home key of E-flat. In the orchestra, he divided violas as well as violins into two parts; this brings the ensemble violas into greater prominence and adds marvelous richness to the accompaniment.

This work demonstrates Mozart’s extraordinary sensitivity to instrumental colors. The contrast between the darkness and brightness of the two solo instruments is  beautifully exploited in statement-and-response dialogue. And their emergence in the first movement, like celestial apparitions from the earthy core of the orchestra, constitutes one of the most effective solo entrances ever conceived.

Ravishing melody is the Sinfonia’s other hallmark. In the leisurely sonata-form first movement, there are so many melodic strands that it is pointless to speak of a “principal theme” and a “second theme.” Melody reaches its apotheosis in the C-minor second movement, one of the greatest of all Mozart’s slow movements. Here, in an Italianate aria of heartbreaking beauty, the soloists become two operatic divas, soprano and contralto. Chromatic harmonies and bold dissonance color long-spun vocal lines and reveal a grownup Mozart who has suffered and learned how to transform pain into high art.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543 (1788)

Mozart’s final three symphonies are among the most astonishing creations in musical history. Not only are they his greatest symphonic works—and each utterly different from its mates—but they were composed in just six weeks’ time during the summer of 1788. To add to their mystique, it was long believed that Mozart wrote them without any commission or external stimulus and that they were, tragically, never performed during his lifetime.

But Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw has made a strong case that this was not so: he has found much circumstantial evidence these works were indeed performed over the last three years of the composer’s life. “The very idea that Mozart would have written three such works, unprecedented in length and complexity, only to please himself or because he was inspired, flies in the face of his known attitudes to music and life, and the financial straits in which he then found himself,” writes Zaslaw. “While he may often have found great personal pleasure in composing,…he composed to pay his rent and be a useful member of society. … His symphonies were not art for art’s sake, but music for use.”

In the summer of 1788, Mozart was indeed in severe financial straits. His popularity with the fickle Viennese public had waned, the local concert scene was much reduced by a costly war between Austria and Turkey, and his annual income had dropped to an all-time low. As he was composing this symphony (completed June 26, 1788), he began writing a series of pleading letters to his fellow Mason Michael Puchberg begging for huge loans, to which Puchberg (and others) generously responded.

The first movement’s slow introduction immediately seizes our attention with loud fanfares. Its drama is also accentuated by pungent dissonances. Notice the rapid descending scales in the violins, for they will become a prominent feature in the main Allegro section. The Allegro’s gracious principal theme slips in quietly as though we had suddenly opened the drawing room door on a conversation in progress. Throughout this sonata-form movement, supple, lyrical passages play against loud, rhythmically driven ones, which ultimately dominate.

The Andante con moto second movement is an adventurous struggle between Romantic passion and Classical control. A prim, little dotted-rhythm theme in two parts gives Mozart startling developmental possibilities as the movement progresses. More startling still are two wild minor-mode interruptions, which threaten to tear the movement apart with their unbridled passion and extreme dissonance. After each of these outbursts, the orchestra manages—barely—to recover its poise with soothing woodwind writing and sweetly consoling responses from the violins.

Trumpets and timpani return for the very grand Minuet, whose chugging strings exude virile energy. The middle trio section prominently features the two clarinets, the upper taking the melody and the lower providing a burbling accompaniment. The melody here was borrowed from a folk ländler, the Austrian forerunner of the waltz.

The finale is a real barnburner in the humorous style of Haydn. Also à la Haydn, it uses just one hurtling theme to propel its sonata-form course. Particularly delicious is the marvelous fiddle passagework that gives this movement the feeling of a kick-up-your-heels Austrian hoedown. Mozart tips his hat one more time to Papa Haydn with an abrupt, witty close.

—Janet E. Bedell © 2022

Janet E. Bedell is a program annotator and feature writer who writes for Carnegie Hall, the Met­ro­politan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Cara­moor Festival of the Arts, and other musical organizations.