Symphony No.

44 in F-sharp Minor, “Farewell”

Franz Joseph Haydn
(b. 1732, Rohrau, Austria; d. 1809, Vienna, Austria)

In 1766, Joseph Haydn was promoted to the post of Kapellmeister, in charge of all
musical activities at the court of Prince Nicolaus Esterházy. The splendor of the
Esterházy establishment rivaled, if not exceeded, that of the Austrian Imperial Court
itself. Already possessing a palace at Eisenstadt on the Hungarian border and a vast town
house in Vienna, Prince Nicolaus about this time transformed a modest hunting lodge on
the muddy plains of Hungary into a glorious rococo palace emulating Versailles. Named
Esterháza, it contained a 400-seat opera house with all the latest stage equipment, a
marionette theater, a chapel, and two magnificent concert halls. Haydn was expected to
write music for all these venues, lead an orchestra composed of some of Europe's finest
virtuosos, as well as carry out all the day-to-day administrative tasks.
It was a job for a superman, but Haydn promptly rose to the challenge. Despite all
the claims on his time, his creative genius burst into full flower, producing symphonies
and chamber music that set new standards for his period. As Jens Peter Larsen writes,
“The symphony was by this time more or less established as an elegant piece of
entertainment for a noble audience, and Haydn had the courage to write symphonies that
were completely different.”
Haydn's risk-taking and originality can be found especially in the remarkable
symphonies in minor keys he wrote between 1768 and 1774. One of the greatest of them
is Symphony No. 45, now known as the “Farewell” Symphony, which became even more
famous because of the fascinating story tied to its composition. Prince Nicolaus became
increasingly fond of his remote Esterháza palace and spent longer and longer periods
there. Since the musicians’ families were not allowed to come with them to Esterháza,
this imposed a severe hardship on them. Finally after a particularly lengthy season in
1772, they appealed to Haydn to intercede with the prince on their behalf.
Haydn came up with an ingenious idea to get the prince’s attention: he devised a
final movement for his latest symphony that graphically illustrated his players’
unhappiness and yearning for home. Part way through the finale, the music switched to a
melancholy Adagio during which one player after another abandoned his part, blew out
the candle at his music stand, and departed from the ensemble. Finally, only two
violinists remained to finish the symphony: Haydn himself and his concertmaster Luigi
Tomasini. As Haydn headed for the door, Prince Nicolaus rose and stopped him. “I have
realized your intention; the musicians are longing for home,” he said. “Well, tomorrow
we pack up.”
But the “Farewell” Symphony is more than this wonderful gimmick. It is a
stunningly dramatic work, in which Haydn plays daringly with symphonic form,
rhythmic motion, and harmony in every movement. And it uses a key — F-sharp minor
— never before chosen for a symphony in the 18th century; in fact, the Esterháza
blacksmith had to build special attachments for the horns in the orchestra so they could
play in this key.
The Allegro assai opening movement is full of intense, even melodramatic
feeling. Over an agitated syncopated accompaniment, the principal theme in the violins
marches angrily down the notes of an F-sharp-minor chord. Wild harmonic clashes and
sharp accents abound. After the development section is underway, Haydn pulls one of his
surprises by inserting a charming, relaxed second theme as a shelter from the storm
before the agitated music returns.
Played with mutes on the violins to soften their sound, the Adagio second
movement is as hesitant and reticent as the first movement was vigorous and assertive.
Though it is filled with timid short-long rhythms and held notes that seem reluctant to
move forward, this movement gains strength from its adventurous harmonies.
Moving to another extremely rare key for the 18th century — F-sharp major — the
third-movement minuet alternates dramatically between loud and soft dynamics and
between straightforward rhythms and those that obscure the regular beat. The horns lead
off the middle or trio section, which uses an old Gregorian-chant melody Haydn had
earlier included in his Symphony No. 26, “Lamentation” — perhaps another reference to
his musicians’ unhappiness.
The finale begins in the style all symphonic final movements followed in
Haydn’s day: high-speed, energetic music with a positive outlook. But after three
minutes, it comes to an unexpected halt. Then begins a new phase: a tenderly
melancholic Adagio in the key of A major. As this lovely music repeats, each musician
plays a little “goodbye” solo and departs the stage; the woodwinds leave first, then the
double bass (listen closely to hear his intricate solo at the bottom of the strings) leads off
the departure of the strings. The surviving two violinists place mutes on their instruments
to give them an even more plaintive sound. What an elegant way to send a message to a
reluctant prince!

Requiem, K. 626
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(b. 1756, Salzburg, Austria; d. 1791, Vienna, Austria)

Listening to Mozart's unfinished Requiem, one feels with special poignancy the tragedy
of Mozart's death at age 35 in the prime of his career. For with this work we are
confronted not only with the question of "what might have been" in his future creative
output had he lived on, but, very specifically, with what might have happened in this
work had he survived to complete it.
The writing of the Requiem has been surrounded with myth and mystery, some of
it true, some of it total fabrication. Yes, there was a mysterious stranger delivering a
commission for a requiem mass from an anonymous patron to Mozart in July 1791. The
unknown patron, however, was not a supernatural being (as Mozart sometimes seemed to
have believed himself as he was writing the work) nor was he Mozart's rival Antonio
Salieri (as Peter Shaffer postulates in his fictional play Amadeus); he was Count Franz
Walsegg-Stuppach, a wealthy musical amateur who liked to commission works by
leading composers for his chamber ensemble and then try to pass them off as his own
compositions. In February 1791, Count Walsegg had lost his young wife, Anna, and he
anonymously commissioned a requiem from Mozart as a memorial to her.
Although he was still in good health during the summer of 1791, Mozart seems to
have reacted to this commission as a harbinger of his own death; while working on it, he
was often depressed and told his wife, Constanze, that he felt that he was writing his own
requiem. He also found plenty of excuses to set the work aside: first to fulfill a
commission from Prague for the opera La Clemenza di Tito, then to write the great
Clarinet Concerto for his friend Anton Stadler, next to put the finishing touches —
including the overture — on his comic opera Die Zauberflöte, and finally, in the midst of
writing the Requiem, to write and premiere the Kleine Freymaurer Kantate, K. 623.
Mozart/Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon estimates that Mozart only managed to
work intermittently on the Requiem from October 8 to November 20, when he took to his
bed with his fatal illness.
As he lay dying, Mozart was still struggling to complete the work, but he was not
dictating it to Salieri, à la the film version of Amadeus; instead, he was working closely
with his two students Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Mozart managed to
complete the critical work of composing all the vocal parts, the figured bass that
controlled the harmony, and important instrumental parts, such as most of the first violin
parts and the trombone solo for "Tuba Mirum," up to the Sanctus. The first eight bars of
the poignant "Lacrimosa" section are believed to be the very last measures of music he
composed. Under his direction, the full scoring for the opening Introitus and Kyrie was
done, leaving these movements essentially complete.
At Mozart's death on December 5, 1791, his widow, desperate for money, was left
with a beautiful torso of a Requiem, but one that still needed much work before it could
be sent off to fulfill Walsegg's commission. After first trying out Eybler, she turned the
score over to Süssmayr, who had to complete the "Lacrimosa" and the orchestration for
the other sections, plus compose from scratch the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei
movements (which, as far as we know, do not contain any music by Mozart).
With the assistance of Mozart's friend and patron Baron van Swieten, the first
performance of the Requiem, with the Süssmayr completion, was given in Vienna on
January 2, 1793 as a benefit for Constanze Mozart and her two children. Count Walsegg
mounted his performance of the work to honor his wife in December of that same year.
Fortunately, Süssmayr's additions aside, Mozart himself finished enough of the
Requiem to make it a worthy valedictory to his genius. The work's dark-hued
orchestration and the somber key of D minor (used by Mozart for scenes of operatic
tragedy) lend credibility to the theory that Mozart believed he was writing the Requiem
for his own death. His choice of woodwinds is most unusual: two bassoons and two
basset horns — an alto version of the clarinet just coming into vogue in the late 18th
century but no longer in use today; he eschewed the brighter-toned flutes, oboes, and
clarinets. More darkness is contributed by the complement of three trombones
(instruments traditionally associated with death in earlier centuries); the rest of the
orchestration specifies two trumpets, timpani, organ, and strings.
The opening Introitus has a halting, ominous quality with its slow, aspirated
figures for the strings and the prominence given the low winds; the extra-musical
impression of Mozart as a young, vital man facing the specter of death with great
reluctance seems too obvious here to ignore. A contrasting mood of resignation and
acceptance comes with the soprano soloist's gentle "Te decet hymnus," accompanied by
strings singing a melody of radiant sweetness. Mozart follows with a dazzling double
fugue for the Kyrie that counteracts the gravity of the Introitus; the composer was a great
lover and student of the scores of Bach and grew more interested in intricate contrapuntal
writing in the final years of his life.
 Constanze Mozart claimed that her husband had instructed Süssmayr to bring
back the Introitus and Kyrie music for the Requiem's final movement, the Communio.
Süssmayr, for his part, said that had been his own idea. In any case, this device saved
Süssmayr a lot of work and ensures that posterity is hearing pure Mozart at both the
beginning and end of the work. Though bringing the opening music back at the end gives
a nice symmetry and was a common practice in Mozart's day, one wonders if Mozart — a
wonderfully sensitive text-setter — would have really chosen to use the same music for
the very different words of the Communio. Throughout the Mozart portions of the
Requiem, there are many moments to treasure. The fire-breathing "Dies Irae" with its
racing violins and powerful homophonic utterances from the chorus: a "Day of Anger" to
set one's nerves tingling! The ineffably beautiful "Recordare" for the solo quartet: a
gentle prayer for Jesus' mercy, with the two violin sections and pairs of soloists echoing
each other's phrases in closely spaced imitative counterpoint. The fierce, brass-
accompanied "Confutatis" for the male voices contrasting with the wondrously ethereal
"Voca me" pleas for the women's chorus and strings. And finally, the bittersweet beauty
of the opening eight measures of the "Lacrimosa" — the last music Mozart wrote — with
their chromatic ascent to the cadence — and, for Mozart, to another world.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2010