My (Current) Favourite Symphony

 I suppose Mozart is the greater composer but I often prefer Haydn. There is an innate goodness about his music and it appears there was about him too. Portraits show a kind looking man and reports about his life confirm this impression. He was widely regarded as a good and honourable person, and noted for his particular modesty, generosity and warm heart. He was a humble man with deep faith in God to whom he attributed his artistic success. All in all, a completely admirable person, very unusual for a great artist!

I have recently worked my way through his entire symphonic oeuvre, 104 official ones plus a couple of late discoveries, and there is not a dud among them. Some are obviously better than others, and the later works certainly show development. Quite unlike pop musicians who have usually done their best work by 25, Haydn carried on improving and was composing some of his greatest works at the end of his long life. But there are pieces of genius throughout the canon. I particularly love the last movement of the 29th symphony, a joyous presto rush to the line which is at 12.33 here, but there are countless other examples one could give. The middle period Sturm and Drang symphonies are very fine with their early hints at a Romantic sensibility expressed through the subtle use of counterpoint and dramatic contrasts.

English readers of a certain age will know the Ladybird books, short hardback books for children of about 50 pages which introduced their youthful audience to a variety of subjects from fairy tales to British history and wildlife. I remember as a small child being entranced by the Ladybird books of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, all beautifully illustrated. There was also a Ladybird book of classical composers and that may have been where I first heard of Haydn. It's certainly where I first heard of classical music. I remember reading that the experienced listener could even tell the difference between Bach, Mozart and Beethoven which seemed incredible to me then! 

This was when I was very young. Some years later when I began to explore classical music I remembered this book and bought LPs of some of the recommended works such as Bach's Brandenburg concertos, Mozart piano concertos and Beethoven symphonies and piano sonatas. I also bought Haydn's Surprise Symphony in a performance by Herbert von Karajan which would probably seem very heavy-handed to me now. But then I enjoyed it immensely. It is deceptively simple, incredibly tuneful and the perfect piece for a classical newcomer.

It's a pointless exercise, playing the game of favourites because there are so many possibilities and one's tastes change. I would certainly not say that the Surprise Symphony is better than Beethoven's Pastoral or Mozart's Jupiter or Dvorak's New World just to mention symphonies with names, but at the moment it is the one I am enjoying the most. The Andante 2nd movement is the famous one with the surprise which I won't describe in case you haven't heard it, but all 4 movements are wonderful with a fleet-footed joy to them. Elitists may turn their noses up at what Charles Ives called "Nice little easy sugar-plum sounds", but that's their bad luck. Haydn doesn't plumb the depths of a Beethoven or Wagner, that was not his era, and some may mistake his fluency for a facile shallowness. However, his music breathes sheer natural goodness, and that is sometimes the best thing to experience.