CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES

JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)

Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, “Farewell”

Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Lower Austria, and died on May 31, 1809 in Vienna. The “Farewell” Symphony was composed in 1772 and premiered in November 1772 at the Esterháza Palace in Hungary. The score calls for two oboes, bassoon, two horns and strings. Duration is about 25 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece on October 28, 2010, conducted by Scott O'Neil.

One of the first acts of Nikolaus Esterházy when he succeeded his brother Paul Anton to the title of Prince Esterházy in 1762, was to expand the family’s hunting lodge at the Neusiedler Lake, on the Austrian-Hungarian border, into a magnificent chateau. Esterháza Palace was opened four years later, and became Nikolaus’ preferred residence. After 1768, when the Esterháza opera house was opened, he and his entire household spent six months a year at the magnificent but isolated Hungarian estate, dividing the rest of their time between the old residence in Eisenstadt and the town house in Vienna. Though a separate “Musicians’ Building” was constructed at Esterháza to house Haydn and his players, disturbances there among the musicians’ families led Prince Nikolaus to make a declaration through his secretary, no doubt prompted in part by his considering at that time cutting the size of his musical establishment: “Let it be made known to the musicians that in future their wives and families are not to come here — not even for 24 hours, and that those who are displeased by this order shall give in their notice. Make it clear to the musicians that they shall, as in former years, appear in Esterháza without their wives.” Grudgingly, the musicians accepted this dictum and spent the entire summer, May to October, away from their families, who remained in Eisenstadt. When Nikolaus unexpectedly announced he planned to extend his stay at Esterháza by several weeks beyond the usual November 1st departure date in 1772, the musicians (“vigorous young married men,” Haydn called them) went to their leader to ask if he could convince Nikolaus to end the long Hungarian exile so that they could return to their families. The rest of the story is well known: how Haydn devised a piece — this “Farewell” Symphony — which ended as, one by one, the players finished their parts, snuffed out their candles, and stole from the stage; how the Prince became sympathetic to the musicians’ plight; and how he decided to close the palace for the season the day after the concert.

In addition to the charming story surrounding its creation, the “Farewell” Symphony also has the virtue of being among Haydn’s supreme masterpieces. It was one of a number of works composed during the early 1770s in which he explored the new expressive possibilities that had been opened to music by C.P.E. Bach, the second son of Johann Sebastian. These so-called Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) compositions possess an almost Romantic emotionalism generated by the use of minor keys, unusual tonal areas, chromatic harmonies, bold contrasts of mood, aggressive rhythms, melodies of touching pathos, and formal experimentation. “A curiously melancholic little piece,” said Mendelssohn when he conducted the “Farewell” Symphony in 1838. Robert Schumann wrote of that concert, which ended with the players leaving the stage as had Haydn’s band at Esterháza, “No one laughed, for it was not at all funny.”

The eminent Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon wrote of the “Farewell” Symphony, “Formally, the first movement is startlingly original, possibly the most ‘far-out’ sonata-form movement of Haydn’s whole career.” The main theme, a stormy strain descending rapidly