Symphony No. 68 (Haydn)

The Symphony No. 68 in B flat major, Hoboken I/68, is a symphony by Joseph Haydn. The symphony was composed by 1779.

Movements

It is scored two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and strings.[1] This is one of the first of Haydn's symphonies to contain two independent bassoon parts.[2]

  1. Vivace
  2. Menuetto & Trio
  3. Adagio cantabile
  4. Finale: Presto

In the trio of the minuet, Haydn plays games with the accents, moving the appearance of a downbeat to different places in the bar -- a game he would play to a much greater effect in the trio of his Oxford Symphony.[2]

The slow movement opens with muted first violins playing a serenade-like melody over a tick-tock accompaniment in the second violins. Periodically in this section, the full tutti will double the accompaniment forte for four notes, turning the tick-tock into something of a fanfare.[3]

The finale is a contredanse rondo with three episodes and a coda. The first episode features the bassoons, the second episode the oboes and the third episode is in stormy G minor.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ HC Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, 5 vols, (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1976-) v. 2, Haydn at Eszterhaza, 1766-1790
  2. ^ a b c Brown, A. Peter, The Symphonic Repertoire (Volume 2). Indiana University Press (ISBN 025333487X), pp. 159-160 (2002).
  3. ^ Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 182-185 (2nd edition 1988, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, ISBN 0-393-30219-9).