Symphony No. 90 (Haydn)

The Symphony No. 90 in C major, Hoboken 1/90, was written by Joseph Haydn in 1788 as part of a three-symphony commission by Comte d'Ogny for the Concerts de la Loge Olympique.[1] It is occasionally referred to as The Letter R -- referring to an older method of cataloguing Haydn's symphonic output.

Movements

The symphony is in standard four-movement form and scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, continuo (harpsichord) and strings.

  1. Adagio - Allegro assai, 3/4
  2. Andante, 2/4
  3. Menuetto: Allegretto, 3/4
  4. Finale: Allegro assai, 2/4

The second movement is in double variation form.

The finale contains one of Haydn's more famous jokes. Soon after the recapitulation starts, the music arrives at a rousing and unexpected "ending" in C major followed by four measures of silence which leads the audience to believe the symphony may have actually finished. Instead, the first theme quietly resumes in the remote key of D-flat major.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ Brown, A. Peter, The Symphonic Repertoire (Volume 2). Indiana University Press (ISBN 0-253-33487-X), pp. 232–233 (2002).
  2. ↑ The Cambridge Companion to Haydn, edited by Caryl Leslie Clark. Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-521-83347-7.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/8/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.