KNOW YOUR CLASSICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 499, 14 January 1949, Page 16

KNOW YOUR CLASSICS

HIS is one of a new series of articles written for "The Listener" by BESSIE POLLARD. As with the preceding series, published some time ago, the aim is to help the student and the interested listener towards a more complete appreciation of good: music. (4) Symphony No. 101 in D- "The Clock," : (Haydn) AYDN, who wrote more than one hundred symphonies, took over this orchestral form from such musical pioneers as Karl Phillip Emanuel Bach, and Karl Stamitz of the Mannheim group, and carried it forward to a high level of artistic and structural development. Perhaps his greatest symphonies are contained in the group of 12 which he wrote after 1791 for his two visits to London. These were commissioned by the impressario JohanngPeter Salomon, and are known as either the "Salomon" or "London" Symphonies. The Symphony No. 101 in D was written in 1794, and performed for the first time at the Haymarket Theatre, London, on May 4, 1795. Its title, "The Clock," is derived from the slow movement in which an accompaniment figure, given out by bassoons and plucked strings, suggests the relentless ticking of a clock. The first movement begins with an Adagio introduction of some 23 bars, after which the main theme is announced by first violins ("A" below); in bar 80 the same instruments give out the subsidiary theme ("B" below)-

The movement grows in animation as it proceeds, yet one is always rather conscious of that underlying air of foreboding which characterised the introduction. Above the accompaniment figure of the slow movement Haydn introduces several lovely themes of which I quote two-the first in the major mode ("A" below) and the second in the minor ("B" below)-

The third movement is a robust Minuet built on the usual ternary planminuet, trio, minuet again. "A" below gives the minuet theme, and "B" the trio melody- i

The spirited and brilliant finale is cast as a Rondo, based on several closely related themes. "A" below shows the principal subject, and "B" gives one of the subsidiary contrasting themes-

In bar 138, the first violins, in the minor mode, play this striking theme-

In bar 189, the main theme of the movement is heard as one of the subjects ef a double fugue. : Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 in D ("The Clock") will be heard at 2.15 on Friday, January 21, from Station 4YZ Invercargill.