Symphony No. 60 (Haydn)
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The Symphony No. 60 in
C major C major is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and its parallel min ...
, Hoboken I/60, was written by
Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
. It is sometimes given the nickname ''Il Distratto'' or, in German, ''Der Zerstreute''.


Nickname

The symphony was adapted from incidental music that Haydn composed in 1774 for a German-language performance at Eszterház of a comedy by the French playwright
Jean-François Regnard Jean-François Regnard (7 February 1655 – 4 September 1709), "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a v ...
called ''Le Distrait'' (''The Absent-Minded Gentleman''). Written in 1697, the play was revived by Karl Wahr’s touring company under the German title ''Der Zerstreute.'' (''Il Distratto'' is the Italian translation and the title that appears on Haydn's incidental music.) The comedy—about a man so absent-minded that he nearly forgets his own wedding—was evidently perfect material for Haydn’s wit and humour, and his music was an instant hit. The ''Pressburger Zeitung'', the leading regional newspaper, wrote on July 6th 1774 of the “original music which connoisseurs consider to be a masterpiece. One observes, here in a vein of musical comedy, the same spirit that enlivens all Haydn’s works. To the admiration of connoisseurs and the sheer delight of listeners, he displays masterly variety, switching from the most affected pomposity to low humour, so that H ydnand Regnard vie with one another as to who is the more capriciously absent-minded.” Another performance on 22 November in Pressburg itself (now Bratislava, Slovakia) elicited another rave review from the same newspaper: “On Tuesday, St Cecilia’s Day, ''Der Zerstreute'' was played. Herr von icHaydn has written singular music for it, with which our readers have already been acquainted by articles from Eszterház published in earlier numbers. Here we will only remind them that it is excellent, quite excellent, and that the finale had to be repeated, since the audience would not stop clapping. In that same movement, the allusion to the absent-minded gentleman who had forgotten on his wedding day that he was the groom, and therefore had to tie a knot in his handkerchief, is extremely well done. The musicians begin the piece most pompously and remember only after a while that their instruments have not been tuned.“ The incidental music fizzes with invention and hilarity and mixes an array of musical styles ranging from stately Baroque to a movement described by the great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon as “a medley of Balkan folk tunes”. Its success ensured that Haydn was quick to adapt it as a six-movement symphony, perhaps as early as 1775. Symphony no. 60 contains the overture, four entr'actes and finale from the music composed for the five-act play.


Movements

The symphony is scored for two
oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...
s,
bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...
, two
French horns The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...
, two optional
trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...
s,
timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
, and
strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
. #
Adagio Adagio (Italian for 'slowly', ) may refer to: Music * Adagio, a tempo marking, indicating that music is to be played slowly, or a composition intended to be played in this manner * Adagio (band), a French progressive metal band Albums * ''Adag ...
, – Allegro di molto, #Andante, in
G major G major is a major scale based on G (musical note), G, with the pitches G, A (musical note), A, B (musical note), B, C (musical note), C, D (musical note), D, E (musical note), E, and F♯ (musical note), F. Its key signature has one sharp (music ...
#
Menuetto A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually written in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that ...
Trio Trio may refer to: Music Groups * Trio (music), an ensemble of three performers, or a composition for such an ensemble ** Jazz trio, pianist, double bassist, drummer ** Minuet and trio, a form in classical music ** String trio, a group of three ...
, (Trio in
C minor C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E major and its parallel major is C major. The C natural minor scale is: Cha ...
) #Presto, in C minor and C major #Adagio (di Lamentatione), in
F major F major is a major scale based on F, with the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat.Music Theory'. (1950). United States: Standards and Curriculum Division, Training, Bureau of Naval Personnel. 28. Its relati ...
#Finale: Prestissimo, The slow introduction to the first movement overture opens with a fanfare similar to the one that opens the 50th symphony which also served as an overture to a stage work.A. Peter Brown, ''The Symphonic Repertoire'' (Volume 2) (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 2002) (), pp. 150–52. The ensuing Allegro is in sonata form. The second theme has a section that is notably marked ''perdendosi'' ("dying away") which Sisman associates with the absent-mindedness of the main character of the play. In the development section, the falling ''
arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...
'' motif that opens the Farewell Symphony is quoted and repeated at different pitches. According to
Giovanni Antonini Giovanni Antonini (born 1965) is an Italian conductor and soloist on the recorder and baroque transverse flute. He studied in his native Milan, and attended the Civica Scuola di Musica in that city and the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva. In ...
, a conductor who has recorded the symphony, this quotation is Haydn portraying the orchestra performing the incorrect composition due to distraction. The slow movement features an alternation between a lyrical string motif and an oboe/horn
fanfare A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets (including fanfare trumpets), French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introdu ...
. From a theatrical standpoint, this suggests a dialogue between two characters in the play—a well-bred young lady and a carousing soldier—but Haydn had also juxtaposed these types of themes in the slow movements of his 28th and 65th symphonies.A. Peter Brown, ''The Symphonic Repertoire'' (Volume 2) (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 2002) (), pp. 101–103. The development section contains a parody of a French
folk dance A folk dance is a dance that reflects the life of the people of a certain country or region. Not all ethnic dances are folk dances. For example, Ritual, ritual dances or dances of ritual origin are not considered to be folk dances. Ritual dances ...
. The courtly and pompous minuet is contrasted by the reappearance of the absent-minded main character in the trio, which features an exotically wandering, rising and falling motif over a
bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...
-like drone. The fifth movement (adagio) briefly introduces timpani and trumpets, not to be found again in a Haydn symphonic slow movement until
Symphony No. 88 Symphony No. 88 in G major (Hoboken I/88) was written by Joseph Haydn, for the orchestra of Esterháza under the benevolent Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy. It is notably the first of his symphonies written after the completion of the six Paris symphoni ...
. The finale features one of Haydn's famous musical jokes: the energetic ''prestissimo'' opening grinds to a sudden halt following a spectacularly discordant orchestral flourish, as the violins discover that they seemingly "need" to retune their strings—which they noisily proceed to do for 10 to 15 seconds before they resume playing.


Critical commentaries

The conductor
Kenneth Woods Kenneth Allen Woods (born 1968) is an American conductor, composer and cellist, resident in the UK. Early career Woods studied conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His subsequent conducting mentors have includ ...
describes it as "the funniest and most modern work" on his list of top twenty C-major symphonies, and "possibly the funniest and most modern symphony ever written", going on to say that "Haydn uses most of the 20th-century 'isms' in this piece—surrealism, absurdism, modernism, poly-stylism, and hops effortlessly between tightly integrated symphonic argument and rapid-fire cinematic jump-cutting. This is Haydn at his absolute boldest—he undermines every expectation, and re-examines every possible assumption about music."


See also

*
List of symphonies by name A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


Notes


External links


BBC Discovering Music
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Has instrumentation, composition date * {{Authority control Symphony 060 Humor in classical music Compositions in C major 1774 compositions