Cam and I listened to Haydn’s next symphony on my lunch break. She’s been following along with the daily listening so far. Today was Symphony No. 5, for which we used the version by the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra & Ádám Fischer on Apple Music. No harpsichord in this one either.
The first movement (‘Adagio ma non troppo’) was mainly notable for the big, soft sound of horns. It was nice background music but didn’t do anything particularly striking or memorable. The second (‘Allegro’) was a step up, with some playful upturned notes, a cycle of enjoyable melodies that repeats a couple of times, and some palpable dramatic moments. This was a pretty strong movement.
This was the first symphony of the series to have the structure that later became traditional: four movements, the third of which is a minuet or some kind of dance. I think Haydn’s supposed to have been one of the key guys who made that popular. But in this instance there were no real sparks for the third movement (‘Minuet and trio’). On to the fourth movement (‘Presto’) — the only thing that really caught my ear was the rapidity of notes at certain moments. Otherwise it was another fine two-minute outburst to close out the symphony.
I rate this symphony 4 stars out of 5.
On a side note, I listened back to the second movement of yesterday’s Symphony No. 4 last night. It is a pretty interesting and entrancing bit, aside from the ‘haunted house’ metaphor I mainly focused on yesterday.