I listened to this one Saturday afternoon, on a tea break between packing for a trip and cleaning up the apartment.

Haydn

The first movement (‘Allegro’) was fairly long, nearly 8 minutes. It’s an energetic opener with some mini-crescendoes and other strong passages built into the churn, but it felt like it could have ended by minute 5.

The second movement (‘Andante, ma non troppo’) was also pretty long, nearly 9 minutes. It immediately drew me in with an alluring, ominous tone — “in the tonic minor, with the slightly odd combination of perkiness and pathos,” as the musicologist James Webster put it. It was a satisfying mood change from the zippy opening movement, but my interest faded after a few minutes, and by minute 6 it didn’t feel like it needed to continue.

The third movement (‘Allegro molto’) is one of the more interesting and different-feeling movements there’s been in a while. It has a quirky energy, with trilling notes and a juxtaposition of off-key phrases against a trumpeting grand-finale mood.

This symphony was a bit unusual with its relatively long opening and middle movements. I’m not sure they earned their extra length. They didn’t build to much that hadn’t been done a few minutes earlier. But there was still something refreshing about this symphony compared to recent ones — it’s flabby by a couple of minutes, but at least didn’t feel as predictable as the others were becoming. This is the first 4-star rating since Symphony No. 10 back on June 5.

Version listened to: Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood
Length: 19:47
Next up: Symphony No. 19