Symphony No. 97 in C major, Hob. I:97

Program notes

About the Work

Joseph Haydn wrote this symphony in London in 1792, towards the end of his first visit to England. He had been brought there by Johann Peter Salomon, a violinist and impresario who put on concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms and also led the orchestra from the first desk. The twelve symphonies Haydn composed for London across two visits are numbered 93 to 104. No. 97 is the fifth of them by number, though it was the last to be written of the first group of six.

The first performance took place at the Hanover Square Rooms at the beginning of May 1792, either at Haydn’s own benefit concert on the 3rd or at Salomon’s concert on the 4th: the records do not settle which. Haydn directed. The symphony is in C major, and the scoring is for pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets with timpani and strings.

Two details show how closely Haydn was writing for the people in front of him. The minuet has no repeat signs: every repeat is written out in full, because he changes the instrumentation each time round. And at the very end of the trio he marked a few bars for ‘Salomon solo’, sending his concertmaster an octave above the rest of the first violins, quietly, so that the man who had brought him to London could be heard on his own for a moment.

The symphony had an afterlife. The young Beethoven took it as the model for a C major symphony that he sketched and never finished. It lasts about twenty-five minutes.

What to Listen For

I. Adagio. Vivace. The slow introduction is soft and searching and takes its time to settle in the home key. Then the Vivace bursts in with a fanfare that simply spells out the C major chord, the kind of gesture that usually ends a movement rather than starting one. The second theme is a Ländler, an Austrian country waltz, over plucked basses.

II. Adagio ma non troppo. A set of variations in F major on a quiet, strolling tune. A stormier variation in the minor interrupts. In the variation that comes after it Haydn asks the violins to play close to the bridge (sul ponticello), which gives a thin, glassy, slightly metallic sound.

III. Menuetto and Trio: Allegretto. A broad, public minuet in which the scoring keeps changing. In the last eight bars of the trio, listen for the single violin riding above the others: that is Salomon’s solo.

IV. Finale: Presto assai. A quick, playful finale, full of stops, starts and conversations between the sections, rounded off with trumpets and drums.