I first listened to this on June 14, the same day I first listened to Symphony No. 32, but never wrote it up until now. I listened to it again today.

Haydn

The first movement (‘Presto’) was jaunty and fun, but none of the melodies jumped out or got stuck in my head. The second movement was a pretty average ‘Menuet and trio’ — you can picture a line of people in wigs and dresses blandly dancing across a shiny floor. I liked the extended dramatic passages through the middle section, starting around 1:30 here.

Things got good with the third movement (‘Andante’). It caught my attention right off the bat with a moaning, declining melody that repeats and repeats. This was one of the more striking motifs of all these symphonies so far. About 30 seconds in, this declining melody starts to repeatedly rise in pitch, creating an interesting paradoxical effect and leaving me in suspense wondering how high it would go. By minute 3, it’s gone through a few evolutions and several overlapping instruments are playing it off each other in a satisfying culmination. One of the better movements so far, if slightly too long.

The fourth movement is a ‘Presto’ finale that has a few good bits and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The main cool thing is that it likes to have the brass come in with a big, low note, followed by a screeching response from the strings.

Those last two movements were both above average, but the first two were average or below. That seems to add up to 2.5 stars out of 5, but I’m going to swing it up to a 3.

Versions listened to: Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra & Adam Fischer; Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood
Length: 16:50
Next up: Symphony No. 107, due to quirks of Haydn scholarship outlined by musicologist James Webster in this guide I’m following. Apparently it was “long thought to be an early string quartet” until scholars reclassified it as one of Haydn’s earliest symphonies in the 1950s.