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Scan 259
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 213. See the scan on archive.org.
1these were occasionally added two clarinets, as in Haydn's last three (the two in D minor and one in Eb (Nos. 101, 104, 103)), and in one movement of the 'Military' symphony (No. 100). Neither Mozart nor Haydn ever used trombones in symphonies; but uncommon instruments were sometimes employed, as in the 'Military,' in which Haydn used a big drum, a triangle and cymbals.
3In his latest symphonies Haydn's treatment of his orchestra agrees in general with the description already given of Mozart's. The bass has attained a free motion of its own; the violas rarely cling in a dependent manner to it, but have their own individual work to do, and the same applies to the second violins, which no longer so often appear merely 'col lmo.' The wind instruments fill up and sustain the harmonies as completely as in former days; but they cease merely to hold long notes without characteristic features, or slavishly to follow the string parts whenever something livelier is required. They may still play a great deal that is mere doubling, but there is generally method in it; and the musical ideas they express are in a great measure proportioned to their characters and style of utterance. Haydn was rather fond of long passages for wind alone, as in the slow movement of the 'Oxford' symphony, the opening passage of the first allegro of the 'Military' symphony, and the 'working out' of the symphony in C, No. 1 of the Salomon set (No. 97). Solos in a tune-form for wind instruments are also rather more common than in Mozart's works, and in many respects the various elements which go to make up the whole are less assimilated than they are by Mozart. The tunes are generally more definite in their outlines, and stand in less close relation with their context. It appears as if Haydn always retained to the last a strong sympathy with simple people's-tunes; the character of his minuets and trios, and especially of his finales, is sometimes strongly defined in this respect; but his way of expressing them within the limits he chose is extraordinarily finished and acute. It is possible that, as before suggested, he got his taste for surprises in harmonic progression from C. P. E. Bach. His instinct for such things, considering the age he lived in, was very remarkable. The passage below, from his symphony in C, just referred
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