Symphony No. 9 in C major
It has been speculated that this symphony might have originated as an overture: it is in three movements and concludes with a minuet, rather than a fast finale; the noisy Allegro molto is unusually short and in the unusual metre of 2/4; and in some respects it resembles the overture to Haydn's 'Festa teatrale' Acide (also from 1762). On the other hand, none of Haydn's other three-movement symphonies ending with a minuet (Nos. 18, 26 and 30) began life as an overture; certain other early symphony first movements in C are noisy, compact, and in 2/4; and, in distinction to Haydn's actual overtures, all three movements of this work have internal repeats.
The Allegro molto eschews strongly profiled themes in favour of three-chord 'ham-merstrokes', wind fanfares, constant bustle and rhythmic surprise. The Andante, also in 2/4, invokes the pastoral, both by the key of G major and the use of flutes, whose sweet tone dominates the sound-world of this movement. Although the minuet is vaguely galant in style, it manipulates the phrase rhythm in a decidedly ungalant manner. The first strain of the trio features an oboe solo over the strings; the second is for the entire wind band alone.

Analysis of the movements

Musicians

Due to the unclear time of origin of most of Haydn’s symphonies - and unlike his 13 Italian operas, where we really know the exact dates of premieres and performances - detailed and correct name lists of the orchestral musicians cannot be given.  As a rough outline, his symphony works can be divided into three temporal blocks. In the first block, in the service of Count Morzin (1757-1761), in the second block, the one at the court of the Esterházys (1761-1790 but with the last symphony for the Esterház audience in 1781) and the third block, the one after Esterház (1782-1795), i.e. in Paris and London.  Just for this middle block at the court of the Esterházys 1761-1781 (the last composed symphony for the Esterház audience) respectively 1790, at the end of his service at the court of Esterház we can choose Haydn’s most important musicians and “long-serving companions” and thereby extract an "all-time - all-stars orchestra".

Music

Score