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Scan 846
Dictionary of music and musicians, 1908
19 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 776. See the scan on archive.org.
1Haydn in the long series of his works cultivated and refined his own powers to such an extent that when his last symphonies had made their appearance, the status of the symphony was raised beyond the possibility of a return to the old level. In fact he gave this branch of art a stability and breadth which served as the basis upon which the art of succeeding generations appears to rest; and the simplicity and clearness of his style and structural principles supplied an intelligible model for his successors to follow.
3One of the most important of the contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart in this department of art was F. J. Gossec. He was born in 1733, one year after Haydn, and lived like him to a good old age. His chief claim to remembrance is the good work which he did in improving the standard of taste for instrumental music in France. According to Fétis such things as instrumental symphonies were absolutely unknown in Paris before 1754, in which year Gossec published his first, five years before Haydn's first attempt. Gossec's work was carried on most effectually by his founding, in 1770, the 'Concert des Amateurs,' for whom he wrote his most important works. He also took the management of the famous Concerts Spirituels, with Gaviniés and Leduc, in 1773, and furthered the cause of good instrumental music there as well. The few symphonies of his to be found in this country are of the same calibre, and for the same groups of instruments, as those of J. C. Bach, Abel, etc., already described; but Fétis attributes importance to him chiefly because of the way in which he extended the dimensions and resources of the orchestra. His Symphony in D, No. 21, written soon after the founding of the Concert des Amateurs, was for a full set of strings, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, and drums; and this was doubtless an astonishing force to the Parisians, accustomed as they had been to regard the compositions of Lully and Rameau as the best specimens of instrumental music. But it is clear from other indications that Gossec had considerable ideas about the ways in which instrumental music might be improved, analogous on a much smaller scale to the aspirations and attempts of Berlioz at a later date. Not only are his works carefully marked with pianos and fortes, but in some (as the Symphonies of op. xii.) there are elaborate directions as to how the movements are to be played. Some of these are curious. For instance, over the first violin part of the slow movement of the second symphony is printed the following: 'La différence du Fort au Doux dans ce morceau doit être excessive, et le mouvement modéré, à l'aise, qu'il semble se jouer avec la plus grande facilité.' Nearly all the separate movements of this set have some such directions, either longer or shorter; the inference from which is that
5Gossec had a strong idea of expression and style in performance, and did not find his bands very easily led in these respects. The movements themselves are on the same small scale as those of J. C. Bach, Abel, and Stamitz; and very rarely have the double bar and repeat in the first movements, though these often make their appearance in the finales. The style is to a certain extent individual; not so robust or so full as that of Bach or Stamitz, but not without attractiveness. As his works are very difficult to get sight of, the following quotation from the last movement of a symphony in B♭ will serve to give some idea of his style and manner of scoring:—
7Allegro ballabile.
9Oboi.
10Corni in Eb.
11Violini 1 & 2.
12Viola.
13Cello e Basso.
15etc.
16etc.
18Another composer of symphonies, who is often heard of in juxtaposition with Haydn and Mozart, and sometimes as being preferred to them by the audiences of the time, is Gyrowetz. His symphonies appear to be on a larger scale than those of the prior generation of composers of second rank like himself. A few of them are occasionally to be met with in collections of 'Periodical overtures,' 'symphonies,' etc., published in separate orchestral parts. One in C, scored for small orchestra, has an introductory
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