Ιωάννης Φούλιας: A peculiarity in Haydn’s early symphonic work: form and possible sources of the first movement of Symphony Hob. I: 21

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Ιωάννης Φούλιας, “A peculiarity in Haydn’s early symphonic work: form and possible sources of the first movement of Symphony Hob. I: 21” [“Μια ιδιομορφία στο πρώιμο συμφωνικό έργο του Haydn: μορφή και πιθανές πηγές του πρώτου μέρους της Συμφωνίας Hob. I: 21”], Πανεπιστήμιο Λευκωσίας, 19 Σεπτεμβρίου 2009.

Among the first 40 symphonies that Joseph Haydn wrote up to 1765, Symphony Hob. I: 21 (1764) has a slow first movement that does not resemble any other, since it is not based on the usual in mid-18th-century ternary or binary sonata form – i.e. sonata types 3 and 2, respectively, in J. Hepokoski’s and W. Darcy’s recent typology (2006). As R. Landon (1955 & 1980) and especially E. Haimo (1995) have already noticed, its structure would be better described as a fantasy with some allusions of sonata form. In this paper, this interpretation is critically re-examined and finally confirmed, placing this special structural case somewhere in the middle of two other notable “capriccios” by Haydn from the very same period: the first movement of Keyboard Trio Hob. XV: 35 (1764-1765) – a pure (binary) sonata form! – and the Keyboard Capriccio Hob. XVII: 1 (1765) – a pure fantasy on a single theme. Yet, the unique form of the first movement of Haydn’s Symphony Hob. I: 21 does not seem to be absolutely novel in the “pre-classical” repertoire: some slow movements from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Württemberg” Sonatas – and particularly Wq. 49, Nos. 1, 3 and 6 / H. 30, 33 and 36 – display several common characteristics with Haydn’s above mentioned work. Although U. Leisinger (1994) has already put under comprehensive investigation all possible influences of C. Ph. E. Bach on J. Haydn’s keyboard sonatas, his restriction to keyboard music only results in the localisation of the whole topic from about 1770 onwards. On the contrary, the present attempt, focusing on similarities between C. Ph. E. Bach’s and J. Haydn’s compositions during the 1760s, aims at the broadening of this crucial subject matter, not only from a chronological point of view but also in terms of an interrelation between different music genres.