I first listened to this one last week when it auto-played in the car while Camilla and I were on our way to the store to buy a few things for our trip to Oscoda. We let it play, rather than fiddling around to find another song. To refresh my memory, I listened to it again today while walking around on my lunch break, eating a banana.

Haydn

The first movement (‘Allegro molto’) kicks it off with resonant horn blasts and energetic strings. It never lost steam, staying forceful and worthwhile through all six minutes. It’s led by a strong motif of four rising, sharply punctuated notes and multiple times seems about to end before this phrase rings out again. After a couple minutes there’s an ear-catching minor turn that recurs for the rest of the movement.

The second movement (‘Andante’) opened up with some real character, eerie with a bit of quirk. There’s a dramatic moment it does a few times that I really like, where high strings repeat a sharp, alarm-like note while lower strings respond to it with a descent through an ominous scale.

The first seconds of the third movement (‘Presto’) are immediately great, churning through a quick succession of toe-tapping, high-energy passages. It didn’t seem to develop much on these, but I never quite got tired of them before the two minutes and 45 seconds of this movement had elapsed.

This symphony was overall remarkably short and sweet. Finding hardly anything to fault and having enjoyed it from start to finish, I must award it the first 5-star review of this series.

Versions listened to: Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood
Length: 13:15
Next up: Symphony No. 20