Haydn's "Farewell" symphony and the idea of classical style: through-composition and cyclic integration in his instrumental music 9781139085151, 9780521385206, 9780521612012

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Foreword by Ian Bent (page xiii)
Preface (page xv)
Author's note (page xviii)
List of abbreviations (page xix)
Introduction (page 1)
PART I: THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY
1 The construction of the whole (page 13)
2 Instability (page 30)
3 Resolution (page 73)
4 The program (page 113)
PART II: CYCLIC ORGANIZATION IN HAYDN'S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
5 Progressive form and the rhetoric of instability (page 123)
6 Integration of the cycle (page 174)
7 Extramusical associations (page 225)
8 Individual compositions (page 250)
Historiographical conclusion: Haydn's maturity and "Classical style" (page 335)
Bibliography (page 375)
Index (page 390)

Citation preview

This volume offers a new view of Joseph Haydn’s instrumental music. It argues that many of his greatest and most characteristic instrumental works are “throughcomposed,” in the sense that their several movements are bound together into a cycle. This cyclic integration is demonstrated in, for example, the “progressive” form

of individual movements, structural and gestural links between the movements, and extramusical associations.

Central to the study is a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the “Farewell” Symphony, No. 45 in F-sharp minor (1772). The analysis differs from most others in its systematic use of different methods (Toveyan formalism, Schenkerian voice leading, Schoenbergian developing variation) to elucidate the work’s overall coherence. The work’s unique musical processes, in turn, suggest an interpretation of the entire piece (not merely the famous “farewell” finale) in terms of the familiar programmatic story of the musicians’ wish to leave Castle Eszterhaza.

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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MUSIC THEORY AND ANALYSIS GENERAL EDITOR: IAN BENT

HAYDN’S “FAREWELL” SYMPHONY AND THE IDEA OF CLASSICAL STYLE

TITLES IN THIS SERIES 1 Haydn's “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: James Webster

2 Ermst Kurth: Selected Writings: Lee A. Rothfarb

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24 Construction of the whole it are problematical. I postpone discussion of this issue to Chapter 6, in the section “Thematicism,” and proceed for now on a heuristic basis.) In every Haydn movement, the material develops constantly. What is more, any given motivic type, once established,

can develop not only within its “own” domain but in interaction with others, in the middleground as well as the foreground, subliminally as well as overtly. That which develops includes not only patterns of pitch and rhythm, but “abstract” parameters such as types of musical motion (for example, step vs. skip), rhythmic profile (for example, onbeat vs. offbeat), and the effects of destabilizing pitches; and it takes place on any and all structural levels. The intermingling of all these elements not only ensures variety, but is potentially form-defining as well. In the Farewell, this multi-domain process is sustained throughout all fve movements.

Three complexes of motives carry the action: triadic figures (labeled a1, a2, and so on in all examples); descending stepwise progressions (e); and repetitions (c), primarily offbeat figures. (A conspectus of this material is given in Example 1.6; it should be studied in conjunction with the detailed analyses in Chapters 2 and 3 and the qualifying remarks on thematicism in Chapter 6.) The reader may well wonder how such “little” motives,

at once common and unspecific, can govern an entire symphony. In the first place, the Farewell is notable for its absence of coherent stepwise melody; under such circumstances, rhetorical continuity necessarily devolves onto the motivic level. Moreover, each of these motive-types stands for a basic form of musical motion - a=arpeggiation; e=linear melody; c=rhythmic activity - and these elements, as suggested above, become primary bearers of significant content. (At the same time, one should not push such resemblances too far; the limits are suggested on pp. 203-04, in the final paragraphs of the section “Thematicism.”) Without unduly compromising the analyses to follow, I indicate here a few salient aspects of the symphony’s motivic development. In the Allegro assai, the nearly total absence of linear melody is striking. In the exposition, the only motivically significant stepwise progressions come in the second group: the two-bar dissonance-resolution pairs in the bass (e, mm. 44ff), the answering four-bar descent in the violins (e2), and the bass theme following a deceptive cadence (m. 56). Both inherently (m. 56, for example, derives directly from the stormy a headmotive’) and owing to the violent context, these attempts at melody are doomed to fail. The D-major interlude, to be sure, is largely governed by c and e motives from the exposition; but it is aesthetically so divorced from the context that the effect is merely that of another failure, even more devastatingly ineffectual. The Adagio is ambiguous: it is difficult to “breathe” the two-note motive a5 across the middle of each bar, but the stepwise e3 at first does not attract attention; it remains “latent.” Its potential emerges only at the clinching structural cadence of the second group (mm. 69-71), a change prepared during the long second group, which is

dominated by stepwise e material. The “tag” ending of each half of the minuet, for violins alone, also derives from the main theme of the Allegro assai. Furthermore, it relates to the Adagio; to note only the most obvious similarity, the two-bar opening phrase on a5, with offbeat bass, is similar to mm. 1-2 of the Adagio (and identical to a variant at the beginning of the second group, mm. 29-30). > Rywosch, p. 94, notes this derivation from a, as well as that in the minuet, mm. 11-12.

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