Back with Haydn’s Symphony No. 2, clocking in at a crisp 8-and-a-half minutes.
The opening movement (‘Allegro’) had me tapping my foot. The foot-tapping was so strong that I kept tapping even through the lighter, softer moments where it briefly switched to more mysterious chords. The next movement (‘Andante’) really did nothing for me — just a wandering, uninteresting, and constantly trilling melody. Occasionally it generated a moment of interest by shifting to a darker key. The third movement (‘Presto’) had a decent energy level but never really caught my interest, though it did briefly suggest to my mind the image of a galloping horse.
For the listening order, I’m currently following a revisionist chronology laid out by the musicologist James Webster in the notes for a series of Haydn recordings released in the ’90s. Reading those notes yesterday, I was surprised when Webster said “Haydn almost certainly used no keyboard instrument in his symphonies, except in London.” I’d just got done listening to Symphony No. 1, which had a harpsichord through the whole thing! Somehow along the way it became traditional to play Haydn with a harpsichord. The recordings Webster was writing for, conducted by Christopher Hogwood, ditched it and are therefore “the first on original instruments to realise Haydn’s sonic intentions in this essential respect.”
So for Symphony No. 2, I switched to Hogwood. It’s definitely more peaceful without the harpsichord. As soon as I found out it wasn’t technically supposed to be there, the incessant harpsichord in Symphony No. 1 became the equivalent of a ringing cellphone in a movie theater. It’s just a redundant chime, never really doing anything interesting or adding anything other instruments aren’t already doing. So I think I’ll mostly be looking for non-harpsichord recordings.
I rate this symphony 3 stars out of 5.