Haydn: Symphony in D major, Hob.I:104 (“London”)
Adagio – Allegro
Andante
Menuetto:- Allegro
Finale:- Spiritoso
“[After the tiring journey] I am fresh and well again, and occupied with looking at this endlessly huge city of London, whose various beauties and marvels quite astonished me……My arrival [New Year’s Day, 1791] caused a great sensation throughout the whole city, and I went the rounds of all the newspapers for three successive days. Everyone wants to know me. I had to dine out six times up to now, and if I wanted, I could dine out every day; but first I must consider my health, and second my work. Except for the nobility, I admit no callers till two in the afternoon, and at four o’ clock I dine at home with Mr. Salomon…Everything is terribly expensive here…. I wished I could fly for a time to Vienna, to have more quiet in which to work, for the noise that the common people make as they sell their wares in the street is intolerable. At present I am working on symphonies…”.
Much of that letter to his friend Marianna von Genzinger might well ring true for September 2026, rather than 179. For the first time in nearly thirty years, Haydn was now more or less a free agent following the death of his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, and the subsequent dismantling of the dynasty’s musical establishment by its new head, Prince Paul Anton. This news happened to reach the ears of the London impresario Johann Peter Salomon – at that moment travelling in Germany – who wasted no time in persuading the more-or-less redundant Kapellmeister to journey back to London with him in time for his next concert season. The composer did so with no little apprehension, the leave-taking of his dear friend Mozart being one of the more painful moments; fears that they might not see each other again being entirely based on Haydn’s own advancing age. Reports of Mozart’s death had reached him by December 20th, when he wrote to the younger composer’s benefactor Puchberg that “for some time I was beside myself”. By then at least one symphony had already been written – probably in Hertfordshire, where he spent much of the summer with banker friends. By the sixth concert of Salomon’s 1792 series, on 23rd March in the Hanover Square Rooms, the composer had already been engaged for a second season the following year. Haydn would direct from the fortepiano, with Salomon leading an orchestra of about forty players “arranged on a new plan” that would probably seem most unusual today. The immediate popularity of that first group of symphonies has remained to this day – not least the “Surprise” (and not only because of the characteristically witty origin of the work’s nickname).
On 23rd June 1793 Haydn left London after a stay of over eighteen months, travelling again via Bonn – where he agreed with the twenty-two-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven that he should come to Vienna to study with him. Although success in England had also heightened his fame at home, his return to Austria passed largely unnoticed, the general public no doubt being more preoccupied with news of the current war with France. However, in early February 1794 he returned to London for two further seasons, with the already composed Symphony 99 and the middle movements of its G major successor (the “Military”) in his bag. Together with No.101 (“The Clock”), all three were already planned – and quickly completed in time – for that year’s season of “Mr Salomon’s Concerts”, the first of nine performances in the city taking place on 31st March. Three further symphonies were composed in London, and performed the following year – although, due to many of Salomon’s musicians having been drafted to the War of the First Coalition, this series had to be moved to the King’s Theatre, which boasted its own huge orchestra of 60.
This last of all his symphonies (acknowledged by the composer on its title page as “The 12:th [for London] which I have composed in England”) was unveiled on 4th May 1795 – promoted as “Dr. Haydn’s Night”. Afterwards the beneficiary himself wrote, “The whole company was extremely gleeful, as was I. On this evening, I made four thousand gulden. This is something one can only do in England”. How times change. And should we be somewhat taken aback by the apparent prioritising of his bountiful earnings, we do need to remind ourselves that he was an astute businessman as well as a great composer – sometimes more so than for his own good, having now and then got himself into deep water by offering exclusive rights for new compositions to more than one publisher simultaneously……
There seems little reason for this particular symphony to have acquired the name “London”, ahead of the other eleven. Perhaps being the last of them is justification enough. Certainly Haydn would have enabled those sixty musicians to have raised the roof of the theatre, through the grand sonorities to be heard in its finale – as fabulous a farewell as could have been mustered. Finally, on 15th August 1795, he left London for the last time; thereafter, his life in Vienna and Eisenstadt witnessed the crowning glories of a long career: the two tremendous oratorios (The Creation and The Seasons), six glorious masses (for Princess Marie Esterházy’s annual Name Day), and eight of the finest string quartets in the entire repertoire (Opp.76 and 77 – plus the unfinished Op.103), all owing much of their supreme quality to the twelve symphonies composed for London, and the sound of the magnificent orchestras at his disposal there.
© Alan George
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