Since this week began with Father’s Day, I thought I would listen to something by Joseph Haydn, affectionately called “Papa Haydn” by many.
Why is he called “Papa Haydn”? According to “10 Facts about Franz Joseph Haydn” (HERE), he is called “Papa” for many reasons. First and foremost, though, he is known as “Papa” because he regularly had to “care for his often mischievous orchestra musicians who frequently needed saving from trouble while in the court of Prince Esterhazy.” He is also known as the “Father of the Symphony” and the “Father of the String Quartet.” I decided that I would listen to a symphony by Haydn since he wrote 106 of them, but which one? Since I’ve only heard one of them, I had 105 to choose from. Well, in truth, I have heard various Haydn symphonies on the radio. I’m just not sure I could tell you which ones. No one symphony -- other than the Symphony No. 94 in G Major, the “Surprise Symphony” -- really sticks out in my mind. So which symphony to listen to? I found this article, “We made this guy listen to all 104 Haydn symphonies and put them in order of greatness,” (HERE), and he rated No. 40 in F Sharp Minor, “La Passione,” as the best -- so I decided to give it a go. Here’s what the author said: “When a truly dark, complex work leaps out of a musical canon so often reliant on frolic and joy, it’s a big deal. ‘La Passione’ is perhaps Haydn’s most troubling symphony and, therefore, one of his most effective. It’s all in F minor, it’s all morose, it’s all deep, it’s all sweetly shot through with meek sunshine. You can’t deny the emotional power of this symphony, and if you do, well, you’re just doing it wrong, aren’t you?” It is true that -- while many of Haydn's symphonies convey "frolic and joy" -- the essence of this symphony is imbued with melancholy. Soft quarter notes in the strings open the first, adagio movement, and they immediately set a somber, elegiac tone. As a matter of fact, there are passages just before each repeat where the lower strings play short eighth notes as the violins answer with two sixteenth notes, and it very reminiscent of a similar pattern in the Lacrimosa of Mozart’s Requiem. The second movement, marked “Allegro di molto” -- literally “cheerful by a lot” -- definitely picks up the pace; however, the F Minor key continues the serious tone, and it is by no means “cheerful.” Could this buoyant but bleak tone in some way articulate what Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote, “The bustle in a house / The morning after death / Is solemnest of industries / Enacted upon earth.” There is most definitely the solemnest of bustle throughout the entire movement. The third movement, a minuet, continues in F Minor, so the melancholy tone continues as well. However, there is a 40 bar trio in F Major, so for a few brief moments a bit of optimistic geniality emerges. The short (three and a half minute) finale, marked Presto, picks up the speed yet again. Still in F Minor, the somber bustle of the piece rushes to its end, perhaps suggesting the final four lines of Dickinson’s poem quoted above: “The sweeping up the heart / And putting love away / We shall not want to use again / Until eternity.” I did enjoy this symphony. Though it is not as memorable as many of the most famous symphonies in the classical music canon (Beethoven’s 5th, Tchaikovsky’s 6th, Mozart’s 41st, etc.), it certainly was an interesting and satisfying piece.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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