Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

'
774 SYMPHONY
and appropriateness of expression in the management
of the various groups of instruments
employed. In comparison with the works of
his predecessors, and with his own and Haydn's
earlier compositions, tliere is throughout a most
remarkable advance in vitality. The distribution
of certain cadences and passages of tutti
still appear to modern ears formal ; but compared
with the immature formalism of expression,
even in principal ideas, which was prevalent
twenty or even ten years earlier, the improvement
is immense. In such structural elements
as the development of the ideas, the concise
and energetic flow of the music, the distribution
and contrast of instrumental tone, and the
balance and proportion of sound, these works
are generally held to reach a pitch almost
unsurpassable from the point of view of technical
criticism. Mozart's intelligence and taste,
dealing with thoughts as yet undisturbed by
stiong or passionate emotion, attained a degree
of perfection in the sense of pure and directly
intelligible art which later tunes can scarcely
hope to see approached.
Haydn's symphonies up to this time cannot
be said to equal Mozart's in any respect ; though
they show a considerable improvement on the
style of treatment and expression in the 'Trauer
or the ' Farewell ' Symphonies. Of those which
are better known of about this date are 'La
Poule ' and Letter V, ' ' which were written (both
for Paris) in 1786 and 1787. 'Letter Q,' or
the Oxford ' ' Symphony, which was performed
when Haydn received the degree of Doctor of
Music from that university, dates from 1788,
'
the same year as Mozart's great triad. Letter
T ' and ' '
Letter Q are in his mature style, and
thoroughly characteristic in every respect. The
orchestration is clear and fresh, though not so
sympathetic nor so elastic in its variety as
Mozart's ; and the ideas, with all their geniality
and directness, are not up to his own highest
standard. It is the last twelve, which were
writtenfor Salomon afterl790, which havercally
iixed Haydn's high position as a composer of
symphonies ; these became so popular as practically
to supersede the numerous works of all his
predecessors and contemporaries except Mozart,
to the extent of causing them to be almost completely
forgotten. This is owing partly to the
high pitch of technical skill which he attained,
partly to the freshness and geniality of his ideas,
and partly to the vigour and daring of harmonic
progression which he manifested. He and Mozart
together enriched this branch of art to an extraordinary
degre6,and towards the end of their lives
began to introduce far deeper feeling and earnestness
into the style than had been customary in
early works of the class. The average orchestra
had increased in size, and at the same time
had gained a better balance of its component
elements. Instead of the customary little group
of strings and four wind instruments, it had
come to comprise, besides the strings, two flutes,
two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two
trumpets, and drums. To these were occasionally
added two clarinets, as in Haydn's last
three (the two in D minor and one in Eb), and
in one movement of the Military Symphony.
Neither Mozart nor Haydn ever used trombones
in symphonies ; but uncommon instruments
were sometimes employed, as in the 'Military,'
in which Haydn used a big drum, a triangle and
cymbals. -In his latest symphonies Haydn's
treatment of his orchestra agrees in general with
the description already given of Mozart's. The
bass has attained a free motion of its own ; the
violas rarely cling in a dependent manner to it,
but have their own individual work to do, and
the same applies to the second violins, which no
longer so often appear merely col Imo.'" The
'
wind instruments fill up and sustain the harmonies
as completely as in former days ;
but
they cease merely to hold long notes without
characteristic features, or slavishly to follow the
string parts whenever something livelier is required.
They may still play a great deal that
is mere doubling, but there is generally method
in it ; and the musical ideas they express are
in a great measure proportioned to their characters
and style of utterance. Haydn was
rather fond of long passages for wind alone, as
in the slow movement of the Oxford Symphony,
the opening passage of the first allegro of the
Military Symphony, and the working ' out ' of
the Symphony in C, No. 1 of the Salomon set.
Solos in a tune-form for wind instruments are
also rather more common than in Mozart'sworks,
and in many respects the various elements which
go to make up the whole are less assimilated
than they are by Mozart. The tunes are
generally more definite in their outlines, and
stand in less close relation with their context.
It appears as if Haydn always retained to the
last a strong sympathy with simple people'stunes
; the character of his minuets and trios,
and especially of his finales, is sometimes
strongly defined in this respect ; but his way of
expressing them within the limits he chose ia
extraordinarily finished and acute. It is possible
that, as before suggested, he got his taste for
surprises in harmonic progression from 0. P. E.
Bach. His instinct for such things, considering
the age he lived in, was very remarkable. The
passage on the next page, from his Symphony
in C, just referred to, illustrates several of the
above points at once.
The period of Haydn and Mozart is in every
respect the principal crisis in the history of the
Symphony. When they came upon the scene,
it was not regarded as a very important form
of art. In the good musical centres of those
times—and there were many—^ there was a great
demand for .symphonies ; but the bands for
which they were written were small, and appear
from the most natural inferences not to have