Pioneering Haydn On Record
by Christopher Howell

An occasional series dedicated to commercial and live recordings of Haydn symphonies up to and including those of the first two complete cycles by Ernst Märzendorfer and Antal Dorati

Symphony no. 80 in D minor Hob. I/80 (1784)

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It may seem tiresome to begin practically all these articles by saying what an amazing and unusual work this is, but what else can be said about no. 80? The opening movement begins in a terse, dramatic manner that is carried through the change to the relative major – theoretically the “second subject” – with scarcely any let up in either drive or mood. Only a curious codetta to the exposition gives a snatch of a completely different theme, almost suggesting an intrusion by a hurdy-gurdy. This hurdy-gurdy theme occupies most of the development, with various pauses and unexpected changes of key. The start of the recapitulation is absorbed into the argument in such a way that most listeners, their key-sense having been thoroughly confused by what has gone before, will not notice it. A pause ushers in the “second subject”, forte, in the major key, but it is late in the day to dispel the sense of furious driving energy and the music attempts to pull back towards the minor. This fails, but the final appearance of the hurdy-gurdy theme is more bizarre than conclusive. Haydn maybe did not want his listeners to try to work out what has happened, since this must be one of the first symphonies in which he did not request a repeat of the second half of the movement – an omission that will only make its mark with an audience used to hearing second halves repeated when so indicated. By the way, the marking Allegro spiritoso has a very different meaning to Allegro con spirito, which means what you would expect it to mean – “lively with spirit”. “Spiritoso” means “witty”, the last word you would use to describe most of this movement – the “joke” is obviously the sudden intrusion of the hurdy-gurdy music.

This extremely terse movement is followed by a lengthy Adagio – very lengthy if both repeats are taken, which no performance discussed here does. The mood, in a major key, seems serene, but there is passion later as well as some passages in dotted rhythm that sound brusque or droll according to how they are played. The minuet is a forthright affair in the minor key. The trio is in the major key with a sustained chorale-like melody over a triplet accompaniment, but its repeated F sharps sound more melancholy than assuaging. The finale theme, in the major key, also begins with repeated F sharps, but syncopated. This syncopation is so insistent that, by the time the rhythm becomes “normalized”, the listener is thoroughly disoriented and will not immediately perceive the normality. This, in most performances, is not a friendly, humorous Haydn finale, but rather a waspish, angry one.

The first recording of Symphony 80 was set down on 9 January 1939 in New York by the New Friends of Music Orchestra under Fritz Stiedry (RCA Victor M-536). As I noted in my article on Symphony 67, during 1939 Stiedry performed Symphonies 67, 71, 77, 80 and 87 with this orchestra in New York, using new editions specially prepared by Alfred Einstein. Unfortunately, only no. 67 and 80 were recorded, though they did also do no. 99. Stiedry presents the first movement with sustained vehemence. In his hands, the hurdy-gurdy theme shows Haydn as a precursor of Mahler in his use of dance music for purposes of parody. The repeat is played. The second movement is coolly expressive, at times uneasy and, where needed, passionate. The repeats are not given. The minuet is brisk and intense. The second repeat is omitted. The trio is taken slightly slower and allows a chilly warmth to enter. The finale has a fiery drive. The first repeat is played.

On 8 October 1955, Stiedry conducted this symphony in London, with the BBC SO, at the start of a programme completed by Schoenberg’s Second Chamber Symphony and Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Milstein. This is included in the Cameo Classics/Itter Collection set. Stiedry invested the first movement with slightly less vehemence this time, but found more space to point the hurdy-gurdy theme. The repeat is omitted. The second movement is substantially broader, with the phrasing more deeply experienced and characterized. The minuet is slightly slower, though still strong and with a slower tempo for the trio. Something very strange happens at bar 46, where C sharps are played, involving the melody line but also the accompanying parts. The Robbins Landon edition has a C natural and so, to judge from the 1939 recording, did the Einstein edition. The consequent change to the minor in the following bar is weird. Is there any authority for this variant, not heard in any other performance discussed here? All the repeats are included this time. The finale has the same fiery drive as before, though omitting both repeats. It can be said that the 1939 recording conveys the amazement of first discovery, while by 1955, the work had become part of Stiedry’s being. This is an advantage in the second movement, not always so in the first and third.

The first LP version was made in October 1950 by the Vienna SO under Hermann Scherchen (Westminster WL5050, XWN18614). In the first movement, Scherchen is slower than Stiedry, though with plenty of craggy strength. At this tempo, the hurdy-gurdy theme sounds more like the clucking Haydn humour we all love, its Scotch snaps looking ahead to Symphony 83 (“The Hen”). No repeat. The second movement flows rather faster than with Stiedry, the opening suggesting a gentle serenade. This is lovely at first, but later on, as the music becomes more complicated, there is sometimes a feeling that the notes have to be crammed in to keep up the tempo. No repeats. The minuet is deliberate but forceful. The trio is separated by a pause. Scherchen brings out the mournful character of the theme and has the triplets played, not as a quiet, gentle accompaniment, but as a lively counterpoint to the theme. The finale has similar drive to Stiedry’s and no repeat. According to a critic of the time, “this Symphony enjoys in its only LP version a supple presentation of its hope and fright, not to be casually challenged by other conductors”¹. To my ears this, though excellent, is not one of Scherchen’s more revelatory interpretations – the Record Guide thought it “vigorous but lacking in finish²” – and I am not sure that Stiedry’s recording was superseded or even quite matched.

The challenge, casual or not, came from John Pritchard, whose recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra was made in Kingsway Hall on 20-21 December 1954 (CLP 1061³). Pritchard (later Sir John Pritchard) was by then 33. He was already well-known for his work at Glyndebourne and had to his credit a series of records with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for Philips. By the lights of those pre-HIP days, he was something of a specialist in Mozart, if not Haydn. I have to confess I have always thought of Pritchard as a bread-and-butter conductor, sound and sensible but not specially inspired. Maybe I should admit, too, that of the various conductors I saw at Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall in my schooldays, Pritchard is the one who left the least impression. But still, you do not achieve an international career for nothing and people assure me he could do fine things when he felt like it. This seems to be one of those occasions.

Symphony 80 seems to have had a particular appeal for Pritchard. He had already broadcast it in 1952, a concert with Glyndebourne forces that was completed with the Missa Cellensis. He broadcast it again in 1971. His first movement has a similar tempo to Scherchen’s and is no less vehement. The hurdy-gurdy theme is allowed to slow down towards the end, rather imaginatively creating the impression of the instrument winding down. He gives full value to the two-bar pause after the double bar but for some reason shortens that in bars 118-119 – or is that an editing mistake? The repeat is observed. The second movement is only minimally broader than Scherchen’s but he has it sound more like an aria than a serenade. He justifies his tempo in the dotted-rhythm interpolations by giving them an eruptive character. No repeats. In later life, Pritchard became rather partial to repeats – it would be interesting to know if he was more generous in this respect in 1971. His minuet is trenchant, again similar in tempo to Scherchen’s but, unlike Scherchen, he makes less of a pause before the trio and takes it at the same tempo as the minuet. Logically, this is correct, though one has to forgo the melancholy Scherchen found in it. With delicate triplets, this is a more friendly interpretation. The finale has basically a similar drive to Stiedry and Scherchen, but Pritchard also takes the opportunity to lighten the texture where the music permits. The first repeat is taken. On the whole, this seems to me preferable to Stiedry and Scherchen, though I would still return to Stiedry’s BBC performance for his second movement.

Slightly more than a decade passed before the symphony arrived in stereo for the first time, with Leslie Jones conducting the Little Orchestra of London (1966, Pye GSGC-14046 in the UK, Nonesuch H-71131 in the USA). I do not know how “little” this orchestra was, or how many of the potentially available members of the VSO or the Philharmonia were engaged, but, maybe on account of the rather full acoustic, Jones’s chamber orchestra does not sound very different from any of the others. He begins with the proper vehemence at a tempo roughly similar to Scherchen or Pritchard, but allows breeziness to take over when the music veers into the major. The hurdy-gurdy theme is nicely shaped and the pauses in the development are correctly counted out. Good but not overwhelming. The repeat is played. The second movement begins at about the same tempo as Scherchen or Pritchard, though the phrasing is more generic. When the dotted rhythms arrive, though, they fit in comfortably without feeling squeezed in. This is because the tempo is now slower than at the beginning. It often happens with a conductor who is not a real conductor who makes things happens like Stiedry, Scherchen or, on this showing, Pritchard, but a good musician who conducts reasonably well, that, no matter what tempo is set at the beginning of the movement, it gradually settles into the tempo the musicians collectively feel to be the right one. This can have its advantages and the music from this point flows very agreeably at an eight-in-a-bar Andante. You might argue that the sort of control over nuance you hear from the other conductors is a 19^th century accretion not applicable to 18^th century music. Perhaps, but Haydn himself would presumably not have started a movement at a tempo that needed adjustment later on. No repeats. The minuet goes with a firm stride, with no change of tempo for the trio, which sounds a little bland. I notice, though, that Jones has the triplets played legato, slurred three to a bow. This is what the Robbins Landon score seems to say – I say seems because the slur may merely be intended to denote the triplets – but the other conductors have had them played with separate bows, which is perhaps why the music takes on more character. The finale, with the first repeat, spins along nicely without achieving the drive of the others. In conclusion, Jones seems concerned to keep Haydn within 18^th century bounds, even where Haydn himself was yearning to break out of them.

Märzendorfer pitches in at a tempo similar to Stiedry’s 1939 version and does not let up till he reaches the hurdy-gurdy tune. In the development, he counts out the rests as he should and he has the oboe sound very cheeky in bar 70. He handles this whole section with insight and no one since Stiedry has made so much of the wandering bassoon from bar 85. The repeat is played. Märzendorfer’s Adagio is definitely in four, not eight, but, more than anyone who has taken this movement relatively swiftly, he manages, by tight phrasing, to avoid the impression that the later dotted rhythms are squeezed into the tempo. He lends an operatic air to the music – with the strutting quavers in the lower strings the music is forging along quite merrily by this point, with the dotted rhythms sounding increasingly like a cheeky comment from someone in the ensemble. Moreover, he gives us a repeat at last, if only the first. His minuet forges ahead firmly and his trio is barely, if at all, slower, yet he manages to convey the mournful quality of the repeated notes. He has the triplets played very delicately, but not slurred. His finale goes at a tremendous pace – once the semiquavers start in the violins, played fairly lightly, a perpetuum mobile seems under way. Märzendorfer succeeds, in fact, in making this movement more effervescent than angry. And we get both repeats. That Haydn intended this is clear from the two empty bars at the end, which would have no point if the music had finished anyway. It is also evident from the length of the pause that people were expected to think it was the end. Whether or not Haydn’s audiences would have burst into applause only to be silenced, this would seem inevitable in a modern performance, especially one with the verve of this one, but maybe this is all part of Haydn’s game. I suppose a conductor might just hold the audience off by beating very demonstrably through the pause to show the music has not finished. Märzendorfer’s performance comfortably supersedes all previous ones.

Dorati’s version is unlike all the others. He begins forcefully, but with a more refined orchestral sound that avoids jabbing too viciously at the sforzati. Moreover, when the music veers to the major key – in theory, the “second subject” – Dorati finds a touch of bonhomie, even joy, where the others press grimly on. As a result, the hurdy-gurdy theme arrives, not as a shocking intrusion, but as the consequence of a logical mood-progression. The rests in the development are counted out correctly and Dorati gives proper presence to the wandering bassoon. The repeat is played. In the second movement, Dorati adopts approximately the tempo that Jones reached later on. He obtained exquisite phrasing and shading, creating an impression of serenity. The forte passages express longing rather than passion, and as the music fills with notes, the mood is quietly joyful. Neither repeat is taken. The minuet has a steady baroque tread, together with a certain grace. This is not one of Dorati’s flabby minuets – the playing is very alert. In the trio, he emphasizes the staccato dots on the repeated notes, producing elegance in place of mournfulness. His triplets are kept well in the background but, so far as I could make out, they are slurred. In the finale, while Märzendorfer gained effervescence as the music developed, with Dorati all is light and joy from the beginning, the occasional forceful passage hardly disturbing the festive atmosphere. Only the first repeat is played.

According to its own lights, Dorati’s performance is a total success in all four movements. If you got to know the music that way, all the others might sound rabid and crude. My feeling is that, if Haydn is to be heard as a great composer as opposed to a delightful one, we should not minimize his power to shock. For this, as well as for the additional repeats, we must go Märzendorfer, though Stiedry, Scherchen, Pritchard and Jones did not play down the symphony’s elemental nature either. But this Dorati performance is very nice. Perhaps I will keep it by as a guilty pleasure.

Turning now to live/broadcast performances, apart from the Stiedry already discussed I have just two, both by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York PO, from 21 October 1951 and 2 July 1954. The latter is more easily found, since it was issued by AS Disc (AS 539). The former circulates privately but seems to me slightly preferable, even as sound, surprisingly. It is preserved with the concluding announcement which tells us this was the first time the symphony had been performed at a New York Philharmonic concert. In 1951, Mitropoulos took a relatively steady tempo for the first movement and, like Scherchen, performs it with great drive and conviction, relaxing only for the hurdy-gurdy theme. No repeat. His second movement is again similar to Scherchen’s – which I suppose he could have heard, but I prefer to think they were two similar artists reaching similar conclusions. With Mitropoulos, too, there is a feeling that the notes are being crammed in uncomfortably when the dotted rhythms arrive. No repeats. The minuet is fairly slow but and I found it a little too weighty, though the tempo suits the trio very nicely. The finale, without repeat, is fast, even furious, but with careful attention to the softer dynamics. It is interesting, indeed, that these off-air broadcasts of American symphony orchestras often give a better impression of the dynamic range achieved by them and most of their conductors than comes across on the frequently over-bearing official recordings.

In 1954, Mitropoulos was slower in all four movements. The first still has a forceful thrust but is a tad heavy-handed. In the second movement, the slower tempo is to the advantage of the music – the dotted rhythms now fit in naturally. No special qualities of phrasing emerge, but this may be a failing of the recording. The minuet is even weightier than before, too much for me, but the trio is gently expressive. The finale opens with an attractive air of hesitancy, but at times runs ahead, sounding almost hectic. So the 1951 performance is the one to remember Mitropoulos by, though either way these fall into the “nice to have heard it” category rather than the “essential” one.

I will just mention that the BBC Programme Index shows that, in addition to the Stiedry and Pritchard broadcasts mentioned, this symphony received a certain amount of attention in the 1960s and early 1970s, with performances under Harry Newstone (1965), Maurice Handford (1966 and 1970), Bryden Thomson (1972) and, theoretically just outside my cut-off date but surely of interest, Walter Susskind (1974 and 1975) and Raymond Leppard (1975). In Italy, Harold Byrns conducted it in Einstein’s revision on 9 October 1953 in Turin. It would be nice to think some of these might still exist somewhere.

Christopher Howell © 2026

1 C. G. Burke: The Music of Jos. Haydn on microgroove records, High Fidelity November-December 1952, p.74.

2 Edward Sackville-West, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, with Andrew Porter and William Mann: The Record Guide, Revised Edition, Collins 1955, p.353.

3 Available from Forgotten Records FR 696.