Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SYMPHONY 769
and octave passages for the strings, but there is
also good free writing, and contrasts between
wind and strings ; the wind being oocdsionally
left qviitfi alone. All the instruments come in
occasionally for special employment, and considering
the proportions of the orchestras of the
time Bach's effects must have been generally
clear and good. The following is a good specimen
of his scoring of an ordinary full passage :
It has sometimes been said that Haydn was
chiefly influenced by Emanuel Bach, and Mozart
by John Christian Bach. At the present time,
and in relation to symphonies, it is easier to
understand the latter case than the former.
In both cases the influence is more likely to be
traced in olavierworks than in those for orchestra.
For Haydn's style and treatment of form bear
far more resemblance to most of the other oomzw=-—-==z
Violiiii 1 & 2.
posers whose works have been referred to, than
to Emanuel Bach. There are certain kinds
of forcible expression and ingenious turns of
modulation which Haydn may have learnt from
him ; but their best orchestral works seem to
belong to quite distinct families. Haydn's first
symphony was written inl759 for CountMorzin.
Like many other of his early works it does not
seem discoverable in print in England. But it
is said by Pohl,i who must have seen it somewhere
in Germany, to be ' a small work in three
movements for two violins, viola, bass, two oboes,
and two horns ' ;
from which particulars it
would appear to correspond exactly in externals
to the examples above described of Abel's and
J. C. Bach's, etc. In the course of the next few
years he added many more ;
most of which
appear to have been slight and of no great historical
importance, while the few which present
period, its appearance in such a manner m »
VOL. IV
peculiarities are so far isolated in those respects
that they do not throw much light upon the
course of his development, or upon his share m
building up the art-form of the Symphony. Of
.such a kind is the movement (dramatic m character,
and including long passages of recitative)
in the Symphony in C, which he wrote as early
as 1 7 6 1 2 For, though this kind of movement
is found in instrumental works of an earlier
—\"?Sp;°'y7,%?^''^°'-
symphony is too rare to have any special historical
bearings. The course of his development
was gradual and regular. He seems to have
been content with steadily improving the edifice
of his predecessors, and with few exceptions to
have followed their lines. A great deal is frequently
attributed to his connection with the
complete musical establishment which Prince
Esterhazylset up at his great palace at Esterhaz ;
where Haydn certainly had opportunities which
have been the lot of scarcely any other composer
who ever lived. He is described as making
experiments in orchestration, and ringing the
bell for the band to come and try them ;
and,
though this may not be absolutely true in fact,
there can scarcely be a doubt that the very great
improvements which he effected in every department
of orchestration may to a great extent be
attributed to the facilities for testing his works
which he enjoyed. At the same time the really
important portion of his compositions were not
produced till his patron, Prince Kicolaus Esterhazy,
was dead, and the musical establishment
broken up ; nor, it must be remembered, till
after that strange and important episode in
Haydn's life, the rapid flitting of Mozart across
the scene. When Haydn wrote his first symphony,
Mozart was only three years old ;
and
Mozart died in the very year in which the famous
Salomon concerts in London, for which Haydn
wrote nearly all his finest symphonies, began.
3d