Symphony
Symphony in the Classical Period
The word symphony, which literally means ‘sounding together’, was used in the Baroque period to indicate a piece of music played together by a combination of instruments. The word appears in Handel’s oratorio, the ‘Messiah’, and an instrumental interlude is described as a pastoral symphony, quiet music to indicate peace in the fields in the evening. Listen to this excerpt and notice the string orchestra playing over a pedal at the beginning of the excerpt and the frequent use of ornaments in the music.
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(The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a 'Classical' size orchestra. Photograph: Jeremy Hardie.)
Composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti used the word sinfonia to describe Italian overtures used at the start of Italian operas at the end of the seventeenth century. The three sections, fast, slow and fast, were the seed for the development of the symphony. From around 1830 onwards composers started to shape up instrumental works around this pattern with each part developing as a movement in its own right. Composers such as Stamitz and two of J S Bach’s sons, C P E Bach and J C Bach, were really important in establishing the style, but it was the two great composers of the Classical period, Mozart and Haydn, who completed this development and added a further movement, a minuet and trio, before the final fast movement.
The shape established then became:
| Movement 1 | Fast, usually an allegro and in what became known as sonata form. |
| Movement 2 | Slow and often in a simple form such as ternary form. |
| Movement 3 | Minuet and trio, a dance borrowed from the Baroque period and in ternary form. |
| Movement 4 | Fast and usually an allegro, often light-hearted in style and in a form such as rondo form, theme and variations or sonata form. |
At the same time a larger orchestra became established of strings, a woodwind section of a flute, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons, with some brass instruments, two French horns, sometimes two trumpets and normally only timpani from the percussion section. This larger orchestra became fully established in the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn.
1st movement
Sonata form became quickly established as the shape for the first movement and indeed ‘first movement form’ and ‘compound binary form’ are also names frequently used to describe this shape. Listen to the exposition of the first movement from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
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(Mozart in later life).
2nd movement.
Usually a slow movement, in simple form and often containing some beautiful melodies. Listen to this example from the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101, ‘The Clock’. The continuous sound in the background of the melody is the source of the nickname given to the symphony. Listen for that rhythm ticking in a major key and the inverted pedal in the wind instruments at the end of the excerpt.
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(Portrait of Haydn from 1770)
3rd Movement
Rarely anything other than a minuet and trio, a dance borrowed from the Baroque period. Originally the trio was another minuet written for three instruments but as time progressed it retained the name and shape but used different and contrasted instrumentation.
Each minuet was in binary form while the movement as a whole was in ternary form. Listen to all of the minuet and trio from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, which follows exactly this shape. Notice that the minor key in the first section of the minuet contrasts with a major key at the start of the second part. During this movement there is much use of sequence and imitation. In the trio there is a quite marked contrast in the instrumentation, with the woodwind section being used on its own during the first section. The shape of the movement is therefore A:||:B:||:C:||:D:||AB
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(Mozart aged twenty one).
4th Movement
Usually a fast speed and often in a lighter mood, it could be in rondo form or sonata form or theme and variations or indeed a combination of these forms. Listen to this typical example from the last movement of Haydn’s Symphony 101, which seems to have elements of rondo and theme and variation form.
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(Haydn in 1792)
There is no definite line between the Classical and Romantic periods.
Beethoven, 1770-1827, bridged the two periods but was the main composer instrumental in changing the symphony. His first two symphonies are quite clearly classical in their style and sound but it is generally recognised that Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 broke new ground in the sounds that he used, a fact that was recognised at the time by the ageing Haydn, who died in 1809.