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MUSIC: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 | 0:00:01 | 0:00:07 | |
Fate knocking at the door. V for victory. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
The most famous sequence of notes in the whole of music... | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
..from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
MUSIC CONTINUES | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
In this series, we'll discover how the symphony emerged | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
from the world of aristocratic privilege. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
How it accompanied the rise of nations and the fall of empires. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:34 | |
How it became a symbol of freedom and a tool of totalitarianism. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:39 | |
How the symphony taught the orchestra how to speak. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
MUSIC: Beethoven's Symphony No. 40: First Movement | 0:00:44 | 0:00:46 | |
And how it established itself as the ultimate expression of the composer as an artist. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:51 | |
MUSIC: Berlioz's Symphonie: Fantastique March Of The Scaffold, 4th Movement | 0:00:51 | 0:00:56 | |
It's an epic journey that takes us from bands of musicians playing in the palaces of princes | 0:00:58 | 0:01:04 | |
to orchestras of well over 100 performing in vast concert halls. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:09 | |
MUSIC: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9: 4th Movement | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
But how, ultimately, alongside these public statements | 0:01:15 | 0:01:19 | |
it became the vehicle for the most profound expression of private thoughts and emotions | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
that we, the audience, can understand and relate to today. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
MUSIC: Beethoven's Symphony No. 3: Eroica, Fourth Movement | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
Above all, it's the story of great composers. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
In this first episode we'll meet Ludwig van Beethoven, | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
the epitome of the great composer, the artist as hero. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:41 | |
I think he felt that he had an heroic capacity as a creator | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
to take music to a place that nobody thought it could ever go. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
the genius who wrote his first symphony at the age of eight... | 0:01:52 | 0:01:57 | |
..and Joseph Haydn, the giant of 18th century music | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
who was dubbed the Father of the Symphony. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
It's New Year's Day 1791. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
The Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, 58 years old, in rude health, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:32 | |
is sailing from Calais to Dover. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:33 | |
It's a voyage that will take a full ten hours. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
He'd left home a month earlier. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
This is his first trip beyond the borders of his home | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
in a small corner of the vast Austro-Hungarian empire. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
Leaving the security of three decades of service | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
as a musician for the aristocratic Esterhazy family, | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
he's jolted over 800 miles in a horse-drawn coach, | 0:03:00 | 0:03:05 | |
bad weather, bad roads, probably bad food, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
and across Europe, the rumblings from the aftermath of the French Revolution are still being heard. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:13 | |
Haydn was, as ever, pragmatic, but he was also very excited. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
"I remained on deck," he said, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:24 | |
"so as to gaze my fill of that mighty monster, the ocean. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
"Then when the highest waves were whipped up by the wind, I became a little frightened, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:33 | |
"but I overcame it all and arrived on shore without, excuse me, vomiting." | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 104: London, 4th Movement | 0:03:39 | 0:03:42 | |
He's come with a large trunk of scores but, unfortunately, during the chaos of the luggage transfer, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:53 | |
he's lost one vital symphonic manuscript. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
But this epic journey was nearly over. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
In just two days' time, he'd be welcomed into London, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:02 | |
more than welcomed. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:03 | |
He'd be received as the first ever bona-fide musical superstar. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:08 | |
His first six months will be non-stop, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
contracted to deliver six symphonies and already missing one score, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
but Haydn is no ordinary composer. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
He is the most extraordinary of ordinary men. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
And here he is. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:27 | |
Joseph Haydn, painted in the year of his arrival in England in 1791 | 0:04:27 | 0:04:32 | |
by the society portraitist John Hoppner | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
on the orders of King George III himself, | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
as a sign of the man's celebrity. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
Haydn came from a humble background, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
but here he holds himself with immense self-assurance. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
Is there the sharp light of curiosity in his eyes? | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
Haydn was always enthusiastic about exploring the world around him. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
Today, his name is associated above all with the symphony, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
the form he more than anybody in the 18th century worked to develop. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:58 | |
In his hands, the symphony became what the dictionary now defines it as: | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
a large-scale work, usually in four sections or movements, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
and regarded as the most exalted form a composer can use. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:10 | |
And his London symphonies were to bring the works of his genius | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
to the widest possible audience. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
Haydn had this capacity to write music that would speak immediately to all hearers. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:26 | |
What comes out more than anything else | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
is a sense of a new sound world. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
London was the most prosperous and fastest growing city in the world. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:38 | |
By the 1790s, the fashion for opera that had dominated upper class taste | 0:05:38 | 0:05:42 | |
for most of the 18th century was now on the wane and the new middle class, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
who felt that they'd earned their wealth rather than inherited it, was keen for something new | 0:05:45 | 0:05:50 | |
that would reflect their sense of themselves as discerning and cultured. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:55 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No 95, LPO | 0:05:55 | 0:05:57 | |
Haydn was intensely interested in all aspects of British life. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
He visited palaces and naval dockyards. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
He was horrified by the levels of public drunkenness he witnessed, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
and he kept detailed notes about the people that he met | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
and the music that they listened to. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
He stayed with one short interval for four years. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:18 | |
The invitation had come from the violinist, | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
composer and concert organiser Johann Peter Salomon, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
a German by birth | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
and a man known to be highly efficient in business matters. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
Salomon had assembled the finest musicians in the city, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
and hired a recently-opened elegant concert hall | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
on the corner of Hanover Square in fashionable Mayfair. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
The series of concerts the two men would now promote here, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
with Haydn as composer and Salomon as orchestra leader, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
would position the symphony at the centre of London's rapidly growing social and cultural life. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:59 | |
This site occupies the exact footprint | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
of the Hanover Square Rooms when Haydn first saw them in 1791. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:10 | |
Salomon had taken a canny commercial gamble with this concert season, but it would more than pay off. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:16 | |
"All the modish world appear fond of nothing else, my dear. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
"Folks of fashion eager seek 16 concerts in a week." | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
And this is the kind of orchestra that you might have found | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
in the Hanover Rooms in the early 1790s, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:32 | |
and this combination and arrangement of instruments | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
established a blueprint for the symphonic repertoire for the next 100 years or so. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
At the back, we have the woodwind, the brass, the percussion sections. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
They were raised on a platform, a novelty in Haydn's time, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
no doubt enhanced the visual excitement as well as helped with the balance of sound. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
In front, we have the string section, double basses, cellos, violas, violins. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:55 | |
He would divide them into two sections, the seconds and the firsts. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
In the front sat the leader, who on this occasion is Maggie, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:04 | |
but for many of Haydn's concerts would have been Salomon himself. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
And in the centre was Haydn the composer, leading the operation, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
but not conducting in the way we might understand it today. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
-These symphonies were designed to be shared by the audience and the players together. -And to be seen. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:20 | |
To be seen - the drama inherent in, | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
"How will Mr Haydn treat his orchestra in this? What surprises will we get?" | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
Symphony 98 is one of the greatest London symphonies. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
Actually written in England to replace the one he'd lost crossing the channel, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:37 | |
it contains a typical Haydn surprise. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
His take on the British National Anthem. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
In the second of four movements, he takes this tune, varies it, transforms it, | 0:08:56 | 0:09:01 | |
and this is the key to the symphony in Haydn's hands. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:05 | |
He takes a musical idea on a journey, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
and through the course of that journey, everything changes. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
Haydn's sense of playing around is very evident in the 98th Symphony, isn't it? | 0:09:42 | 0:09:47 | |
Oh, yes. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:48 | |
And he knew how to respond to the occasion too, didn't he? | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
And his music produced such incredible reactions of joy and delight and surprise. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:57 | |
It's difficult to imagine nowadays, isn't it, | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
the way audiences always behave very po-faced and quiet. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
And anybody who coughs is criticised. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
If you liked something in a Haydn symphony, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
everybody exclaimed and clapped. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 98: 4th Movement | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
Haydn and Salomon's symphony concerts were an unprecedented success, | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
but it wasn't long before the composer needed some time to himself. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
And this house deep in the Lee Valley in Hertfordshire | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
was where he stayed for the summer of 1791. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
Of all the places Haydn lived and worked during his four-year stay, | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
this one, Roxford, is the only survivor, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
and it was here that he composed Symphony 98. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
It was a retreat from the social whirl | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
that he was very much caught up in London | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
to a sort of countryside life | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
that he would have been familiar with from Austria, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
back to a place where he could think about people he'd met, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
he could think about musical interests of people | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
and he could write the kind of compositions that they were interested in. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
"I work industriously," he wrote to a friend, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
and then added with a touch of homesickness, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
"Early every morning when I walk alone in the wood with my English grammar, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
"I think of my creator and of my family and friends left behind." | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
Despite his homesickness, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
the last movement of Symphony 98 is full of playfulness and joy | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
with a whole series of startling ideas and effects. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 98: 4th Movement | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
The last movement is very fast and lively - | 0:11:36 | 0:11:38 | |
presto, it's marked, which is as fast as you can get. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
It's like a motor rhythm that never wants to stop, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
it powers its way forward, and it's just when you're expecting a repeat of the theme, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
because you've already heard it, he then takes you by surprise. | 0:11:55 | 0:12:00 | |
And they start again with the theme a bit slower. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
But he's got... he's got the ace up his sleeve. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
He makes himself play on the forte piano. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
A little, very trivial, little sort of inner voice as the violins play the tune for the last time. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:23 | |
And it's so lovely that it would have delighted the audience. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
You can imagine, "Oh, tonight," you know, | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
"the great Doctor Haydn gave us a little virtuoso display on the forte piano." | 0:12:32 | 0:12:38 | |
You almost don't hear it at first, do you? You think oh, my gosh... | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
Yes, it's like it's inside, isn't it? | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
It's the sort of haemoglobin of the music, keeping the whole thing alive. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
So where did Haydn's genius spring from? | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
Indeed, where did the symphony itself come from? | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
I'm going to travel back in time to Haydn's early life and career in rural Austria. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:15 | |
A journey that will allow us to understand the development of the symphony in the 18th century. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:25 | |
He was born not far from the Hungarian border | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
in the spring of 1732, the second eldest of 17 children. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
His father was a wheelwright, and both his parents sang for pleasure. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:45 | |
Sent to a local school, he learned to read and write and to sing. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
"They taught me so much," he said, | 0:13:51 | 0:13:53 | |
"although I received more thrashings than food." | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
Then one day, the school was visited by the choirmaster from Vienna's main cathedral, St Stephens, | 0:13:56 | 0:14:03 | |
and eight-year-old Joseph was auditioned. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
So the small, talented boy from the provinces | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
joined the mighty Stephansdom Choir in Vienna. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
We can picture him, | 0:14:14 | 0:14:15 | |
an undistinguished looking little fellow, even at the age of nine wearing a wig. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
MUSIC: Poglietti's Ave Reginia Coelorum | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
When his voice begins to break, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:24 | |
the priest suggests castrating him in order to preserve his beautiful treble. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:29 | |
But luckily for little Joseph, his father intervenes. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
Finally, he's dishonourably discharged from the choir | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
after an incident which sees him cutting off another boy's pigtail. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
For the next few years he struggles, hungry to the point of starvation | 0:14:42 | 0:14:46 | |
and tormented by the affluent city life he sees around him. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 1: 3rd Movement | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
Joseph Haydn's life was saved by his talent. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:59 | |
Once his first compositions began to be played around Vienna's salons and beer gardens, | 0:15:01 | 0:15:07 | |
it didn't take long for him to be singled out as someone special, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
and by the time he was 25, his hungry years were over. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
In the 18th century, artists generally were employed by the Church, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
a royal court or a member of the aristocracy. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
No king, prince or nobleman worth his salt was without his house band. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
And Haydn was fortunate in that he was asked to work for | 0:15:29 | 0:15:33 | |
one of the most noble and wealthiest families in Europe, the Esterhazys. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 12: 3rd Movement | 0:15:38 | 0:15:44 | |
The family palace was in the remote location of Eisenstadt in Eastern Austria, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
but having his own orchestra gave Haydn exactly what he needed. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
As well as being able to fulfil all the normal duties of a composer, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
such as church music and opera, | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
he was able to experiment with new instrumental forms. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
He arrived in 1761, | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
just as Nikolaus I inherited the Esterhazy title. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
The new prince was rich, extravagant and, crucially, | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
his palace had a particularly fine music room. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
So here it is, the crucible of Haydn's laboratory. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:25 | |
No, not just the crucible, the Large Hadron Collider. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:30 | |
Over 70 symphonies and 30 years, | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
Prince Nikolaus was obsessed with music, and in order to feed his veracious appetite, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
Haydn needed to find a form that would show off the full range and virtuosity | 0:16:44 | 0:16:49 | |
of the prince's orchestra. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
At the beginning, they were only a tiny group of musicians, no more than 14 of them, | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
and yet Haydn was inspired by both the quality of their playing | 0:16:55 | 0:17:00 | |
and the beauty of the music room to produce extraordinary symphonies. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
One of the first is Le Matin. Morning. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
It starts with a sunrise that, | 0:17:08 | 0:17:09 | |
in its detailed, tiny way is a little masterpiece in its own right. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:15 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 6: Le Matin, 1st Movement | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
In the course of this little masterpiece, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
various members of this little ensemble get moments of glory. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
It wasn't just the size of Haydn's house band | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
that was so different from a modern symphony orchestra. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
It was the instruments as well. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
The early brass and woodwind were primitive and hard to play, | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
but Haydn's solo writing demonstrates that he could | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
count on some real virtuosity from his players. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
Before Haydn, the symphony certainly existed, but what precisely was it? | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
The word "symphony" literally means "sounding together", making music. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:49 | |
Its earliest use was to distinguish between vocal church music, | 0:18:49 | 0:18:53 | |
the sound of angels perhaps, | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
and the music that instrumentalists might play by themselves | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
as their contribution to a church service. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
Earthly music, music that grounds us in the world of the here and now | 0:19:01 | 0:19:06 | |
before the choir claims our souls, imaginations and our ears for God. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:11 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 22: 1st Movement | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
Haydn wrote symphonies on demand for a variety of occasions. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
One of his greatest early Eisenstadt works is a church symphony, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
No. 22, written to be performed during Mass. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
It later acquired the nickname of The Philosopher, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
possibly because its first movement is exceptionally solemn, | 0:19:38 | 0:19:42 | |
demonstrating the emotional depths of which the symphony was going to be capable in Haydn's hands. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:47 | |
The form of early symphonies came from the opera house originally, | 0:19:52 | 0:19:57 | |
when the instrumental movements at the beginning of an evening | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
constituted a suite not designed to be an artistic whole, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
but a way to lead the audience in to the entertainment. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
Now, from those beginnings, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
Haydn realised that he could extend the contrasts | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
into making a four movement package. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
Very often, this could be fast, then a long, slow movement | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
that gave a sense of gravitas to the whole event. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
Then a dancing minuet to sort of clear the air, | 0:20:28 | 0:20:30 | |
and then a final fast movement. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
The Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt truly was Haydn's laboratory. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
The symphony as he developed it draws from a combination of church music, the world of opera | 0:20:49 | 0:20:55 | |
and having talented musicians to write for. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
With all these factors in place, | 0:20:59 | 0:21:01 | |
he was able to perfect the four movement symphony. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
And beyond that he experimented with other elements, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
the unexpected juxtaposition of mood, unusual instrumentation, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
theatrical effects, surprises, jokes. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
The symphony became a finely wrought interplay of forces, | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
each one a unique and enthralling journey. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
As a symphonist, Haydn is in many ways like a master chef | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
who combines different ingredients to create new dishes. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
In his kitchen garden in Eisenstadt, | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
he planted out his own selection of herbs, and here I met Sigrid Weiss, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
who is an expert on Baroque cookery. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
How lovely to meet you. This is gorgeous. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
-Let me walk you around a little. -So what do we have here? | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
Here we have thyme... | 0:21:49 | 0:21:50 | |
'The lean and hungry years of his youth gave Haydn an obsession with food. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
'In his letters, he's always either praising or complaining about his diet.' | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
They liked to use these strong smelling herbs on the meat in the Baroque, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:03 | |
because of course they had no refrigerators so their meat was not always as fresh. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
Mint here. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:10 | |
'Haydn the gardener and Haydn the gourmet | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
'are all part of the complete picture of Haydn the master craftsman.' | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
-And this one? -Roman sorrel. -Can we eat it? | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
'We could liken symphonic development in one of Haydn's opening movements | 0:22:19 | 0:22:23 | |
'to the preparation of a carefully balanced meal | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
'of the sort which the composer often enjoyed.' | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
-Oh, it's lovely. -It's like lemon. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
All the themes are gathered together at the beginning of the piece | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
in the same way one might gather and prepare ingredients then cook a simple starter. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
This is what's called the exposition, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
a tasty first course that whets your appetite for what's to come. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
Guten appetit! | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
The next stage, the development, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
blends together, reshapes and cooks up all these ingredients, allowing new flavours to emerge. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
Finally, in the recapitulation, all the themes and harmonies are brought together and resolved, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:20 | |
just like the finished main course. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
This is one of Haydn's particular favourites - braised rabbit with dumplings and cherries. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:27 | |
Fantastic! | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
-That looks totally delicious. -Wow! | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
In the 1760s, Prince Nikolaus decided to build an elaborate new pleasure palace | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
50 kilometres east from Eisenstadt, over the Hungarian border. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:44 | |
So every summer the entire court, including Haydn and his orchestra, | 0:23:44 | 0:23:48 | |
decamped to the fairytale palace of Esterhaza. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
However, although there were music rooms, ball rooms, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
banqueting pavilions and a full scale opera house, | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
there was only very limited accommodation for the many musicians. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
Families had to stay in Eisenstadt. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
No wives, no girlfriends, no families. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
The musicians were understandably miserable. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
But Haydn came up with his own rather witty version of industrial action. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:19 | |
MUSIC: Haydn's Symphony No. 45: 4th Movement, The English Concert | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
Symphony 45 was one of the three dozen symphonies | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
written for the summer festivities at Esterhaza. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
It's a serious, sometimes stormy work, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
but at the end comes Haydn's protest, | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
a gesture that gives the work its familiar nickname, The Farewell. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:38 | |
As the last restless movement comes to a close, | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
the music suddenly slows down | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
and the players begin to leave the stage, one by one, | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
each snuffing out the candle on his music stand as he goes. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
Finally, there are just two violins left playing pianissimo, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
and the music evaporates into silence. | 0:24:56 | 0:24:59 | |
The prince took the hint. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:04 | |
The following day, the court returned home to the domestic comforts of Eisenstadt. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:10 | |
Haydn was to stay in Esterhazy for nearly 30 years, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:17 | |
but this was very unusual. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:18 | |
Most composers of the time led a much more nomadic existence, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
moving from place to place, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
and this was of course how musical ideas were moved around. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:27 | |
One of these travelling musicians was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, | 0:25:27 | 0:25:30 | |
and in 1764, not long after Haydn had arrived in Eisenstadt, he visited London. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:37 | |
MUSIC: Mozart's Symphony No. 1: 1st Movement | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
Mozart spent a large part of his childhood on an interminable tour of Europe | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
accompanied by his father and his older sister. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
The family arrived here in London and moved into lodgings above a barber's shop, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:52 | |
which now, delightfully, is an antiquarian booksellers specialising in music. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:59 | |
The whole thing must have been a bit of an ordeal. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
There were reports of all three of them being ill at one time or another. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:09 | |
But it did produce at least one unexpected benefit. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:13 | |
Whilst his father was bedridden, the eight-year-old Wolfgang decided to write his first symphony. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:18 | |
Now remember, he was eight. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
This symphony has been criticised as being derivative, | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
and some have said it was written by his father, | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
and I'm sure his father helped him a great deal. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
But the important point, surely, is that it's a symphony | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
written by an eight-year-old, and it's structurally perfect, | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
exquisitely balanced and very, very nice to listen to. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
In his teens, Mozart criss-crossed Europe, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
picking up ideas wherever he went. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
One of the key centres was Mannheim in South West Germany, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
where the court orchestra was a finely tuned, virtuoso ensemble. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:29 | |
The court composer was Johann Stamitz, | 0:27:29 | 0:27:30 | |
who wrote 60 proto-type symphonies for them. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
They became well known for their novel, dynamic effects, | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
an opening coups d'archet, | 0:27:43 | 0:27:45 | |
a loud bang at the beginning of a piece of music | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
that would wake the audience up and grab their attention. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
The Mannheim Rocket, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
a cluster of notes that soared thrillingly heavenwards, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
and a big orchestral crescendo that was so unexpected | 0:27:55 | 0:27:59 | |
that apparently ladies in the audience used to faint with excitement. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
In preparing the music with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
Mark Elder was keen to work on some of the effects achieved by these symphonic pioneers. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:22 | |
Obviously what we've got to try and show in this, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
this very exciting music, is the style. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
And they were specialists in a sort of bravura attack. Here it is. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:33 | |
THEY PLAY | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
And the coups d'archet was the way everybody attacked | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
the bow in the same way, as they all did there. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
Can we just try that once again? | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
Bravo, well done. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
The idea of getting louder | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
from playing very soft and going to very loud is something we're all so familiar with. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
We do it all the time. But the idea that this was a new way of musicians together | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
expressing the same energy and the same emotion gave the music a new excitement and a new daring. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:28 | |
So celebrated did Mannheim become that in 1777, | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
the 22-year-old Wolfgang Mozart visited the orchestra, | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
bringing with him the score of his latest symphony. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:56 | |
When Mozart decided to premiere this symphony, his 31st, | 0:30:02 | 0:30:06 | |
with them in this very room, he was test-driving his work, | 0:30:06 | 0:30:09 | |
which included several of the crowd-pleasing | 0:30:09 | 0:30:12 | |
Mannheim special effects. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:14 | |
At this stage in his life Mozart really needed a success. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
In Paris there were many wealthy, sophisticated music lovers | 0:30:25 | 0:30:30 | |
and his carefully crafted symphony | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
might land him a commission or even a job. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
Paris in the middle of the 18th century | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
was very different from the modern city. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
The Eiffel Tower and the famous boulevards | 0:30:44 | 0:30:46 | |
weren't built until the 19th century. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:48 | |
And in 1778, when Mozart arrived, | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
the area around here was dominated | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
by a vast Renaissance palace, the Tuileries, | 0:30:53 | 0:30:56 | |
where the fashionable and cultured aristocracy - | 0:30:56 | 0:30:58 | |
this was before the Revolution, remember - flocked to hear music. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:03 | |
Mozart's symphony, later to become known as the Paris Symphony, | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
was first heard here in June 1778. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
Every detail was honed to accord with contemporary Parisian taste. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:25 | |
"In the middle of the first movement | 0:31:25 | 0:31:26 | |
"is a section I knew would excite them," he later wrote to his father. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:30 | |
Sure enough, the audience was carried away by it. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
"Since I knew when I wrote it that it would have this sort of effect, | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
"I used it again at the end." | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
The symphony was a mild success. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
Perhaps he'd so conformed to local taste | 0:31:52 | 0:31:54 | |
that the work didn't particularly stand out. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:57 | |
After the concert, he wrote, "I was happy, | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
"so as soon as the concert was over I rushed over to the Palais-Royal, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
"ordered myself a large ice cream, said my rosary and went home." | 0:32:03 | 0:32:08 | |
Mozart wasn't the only symphonist keen to conquer | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
the discerning audiences of Paris. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
Five years later, half a dozen new symphonies by Joseph Haydn | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
arrived to great acclaim. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:25 | |
Although Prince Esterhazy didn't allow his composer to travel, | 0:32:27 | 0:32:31 | |
he was happy for Haydn's scores to spread his fame. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:35 | |
And when Mozart, now living in Vienna, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:39 | |
heard these Paris Symphonies, | 0:32:39 | 0:32:41 | |
they were to inspire his final great symphonic outpouring. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:45 | |
In 1788, a year before revolution convulsed France, and indeed Europe, | 0:32:51 | 0:32:55 | |
Mozart preformed here in this Viennese cafe, | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
but perhaps more significantly | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
he also wrote three symphonies in a matter of weeks - | 0:33:00 | 0:33:03 | |
the noble No. 39, | 0:33:03 | 0:33:04 | |
the dark, turbulent No. 40, unusually in a minor key, | 0:33:04 | 0:33:08 | |
and the extrovert No. 41, | 0:33:08 | 0:33:10 | |
later nicknamed The Jupiter, | 0:33:10 | 0:33:12 | |
a piece of almost extravagant technical virtuosity. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:16 | |
Mozart's final years are something of a mystery. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
We have lots of small details, | 0:33:30 | 0:33:31 | |
how frequently he changed apartment, for instance, | 0:33:31 | 0:33:34 | |
but about the bigger picture there's nothing at all. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
What he thought about the music he was writing, | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
his ambitions, his hopes and his fears, | 0:33:39 | 0:33:41 | |
and about the last few symphonies, no information. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
These symphonies were completed | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
three years before his sudden and tragic early death. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
But we have no idea what occasioned them | 0:33:58 | 0:34:01 | |
and there is no record of them ever having been actually performed in his lifetime. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
These last symphonies are emotionally rich | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
and full of sadness, just when you least expect it. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:19 | |
The palate of emotional intensity | 0:34:33 | 0:34:38 | |
is very, very marked. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
And one feels that, | 0:34:42 | 0:34:43 | |
whether or not he could have written any more symphonies, that these were | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
a summation for him of what he could achieve in the form. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
And each of them has such a different character. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
Now, to me, the character comes from the choice of key. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
And we know, before he wrote them, that he received a new score | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
of three of Haydn's symphonies | 0:35:01 | 0:35:03 | |
and that they were in these same three keys - | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
E flat, G minor and C major - which are the keys of Mozart's last three symphonies. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:11 | |
He was inspired and wanted to give something | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
to the form that he hadn't hitherto managed. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
Mozart clearly admired the symphonic innovations | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
that Haydn had discovered in his laboratory in Eisenstadt, | 0:35:33 | 0:35:37 | |
and when the two composers met for the first time in the late 1780s, | 0:35:37 | 0:35:41 | |
Haydn repaid the compliment. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:43 | |
"Some have said that I might have some genius," he remarked, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
"but Mozart is always my superior." | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
Suddenly in 1790 everything changed. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
Prince Nikolaus died unexpectedly and the next prince, his son Anton, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:58 | |
immediately began to dismantle | 0:35:58 | 0:36:00 | |
his father's extravagant and expensive musical establishment. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:04 | |
Despite a generous pension, | 0:36:04 | 0:36:05 | |
Haydn must have wondered what the future would bring. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
And then one night as he was sitting at home, | 0:36:08 | 0:36:10 | |
there was a loud knock on the front door. | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
A stranger was let in and declared boldly, | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
"I am Salomon of London and I have come to fetch you." | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
It was a decisive moment in Haydn's life | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
and in the history of the symphony. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
Just before setting off on his epic journey, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
Haydn joined Salomon and Mozart for a farewell meal. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
Salomon was keen to sign Wolfgang up for a British tour, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
but the young composer seemed more concerned about his colleague's welfare. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
"You're not young any more," he said. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:18 | |
"But I'm still in good health," Haydn replied. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
"You're too unworldly and speak too few languages," Mozart said. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
"No," Haydn replied firmly, "my language is understood all over the world." | 0:37:25 | 0:37:31 | |
And now we're back where we started | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
in the last decade of the 18th century | 0:37:38 | 0:37:40 | |
with Haydn's triumphal arrival in London. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
After 30 years as a sort of musical servant in Austria, | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
he's welcomed here as the greatest composer of his age. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
As the Sun newspaper of 1794 put it, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:54 | |
"His music is exquisite, rich, fanciful, bold and impressive." | 0:37:54 | 0:37:59 | |
London gave Joseph Haydn a new lease of life. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
Four years of wildly successful concerts, | 0:38:18 | 0:38:21 | |
twelve new symphonies premiered, the last in 1795 | 0:38:21 | 0:38:25 | |
here at the Theatre Royal Music Rooms in the Haymarket. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:30 | |
As one enamoured critic gushed, | 0:38:30 | 0:38:32 | |
"Would Haydn ever get to the bottom of his genius box?" | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
Well, the answer to that surely must be no. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
Although he would write over 100 symphonies | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
over the course of a long working life, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
Haydn himself would have recognised neither | 0:38:53 | 0:38:56 | |
the dizzying upward spiral of numbers - | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
from his first Symphony in D Major written in 1759 | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
to his 104th written some 40 years later - | 0:39:01 | 0:39:04 | |
nor the affectionate nicknames that some of the pieces acquired - | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
The Philosopher, The Farewell, The Surprise, The Military. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
For the first time in his life, | 0:39:19 | 0:39:21 | |
Haydn had escaped the aristocratic bubble of Eisenstadt. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
The London symphonies reflect both his new experiences of the world | 0:39:25 | 0:39:29 | |
and his encounters with a wider audience. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
In London there was hunger for music that spoke to | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
the tensions around the French Revolution | 0:39:40 | 0:39:44 | |
and the anxieties that the British had | 0:39:44 | 0:39:47 | |
when revolution turned into attack on other countries. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:51 | |
Now symphonies were not only being played in public, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
but becoming public statements in themselves. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
The Military Symphony, the eighth of the London symphonies, | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
written in 1794 and a masterpiece. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
It was Haydn's greatest success during his visit to England. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
It's war music that the audience regarded as acutely topical. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:35 | |
It's difficult with our modern ears | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
to grasp the impact this work had on the British public. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
Amongst other things, Haydn shocked them | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
with his use for the first time of Turkish percussion. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:46 | |
"Encore, encore, encore," resounded from every seat, | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
the ladies themselves could not forbear. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:12 | |
It is the advance into battle and the march of men. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:19 | |
The sounding of the charge, the thundering of the onset. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
The clash of arms, the groans of the wounded | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
and what may be called the hellish roar of war | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
increases to a climax of horrid sublimity. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
Haydn writing for London audiences | 0:41:58 | 0:42:01 | |
in the 1790s was very much aware | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
that they saw themselves as a manly, military society | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
and Haydn absolutely captured that. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
When Haydn left London to return home to Austria | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
he made a brief stop along the way | 0:42:14 | 0:42:17 | |
in the provincial German town of Bonn. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
Here he was to meet for the first time the composer | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
who would carry the symphony forward into the next century - | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
Ludwig van Beethoven. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:28 | |
Haydn was 60 and the sullen young viola player - | 0:42:30 | 0:42:34 | |
he was a member of the Elector Of Bonn's Orchestra - was 22. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:37 | |
He was already showing some promise as a composer. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
He'd written two attention-grabbing Imperial Cantatas | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
and Haydn agreed to take him on as a student. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:45 | |
It was never an easy relationship. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
"You will have thoughts that no-one has had before," said Haydn, | 0:42:49 | 0:42:52 | |
"but the rules will always be sacrificed to your moods." | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
England had changed Haydn. Mozart had died whilst he was away | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
and he returned to Austria an old man. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
Papa Haydn they now started calling him. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:09 | |
He left behind him the court at Esterhazy and came to Vienna | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
to take up his rightful place as a senior member of Viennese society. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:19 | |
And significantly he stopped writing symphonies | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
but he had by no means retired. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
Before he left London, Salomon had given him a manuscript, | 0:43:28 | 0:43:32 | |
an anonymous libretto in English based partly on the Book Of Genesis | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
and partly on Milton's poem Paradise Lost. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:39 | |
The result was The Creation, | 0:43:43 | 0:43:45 | |
a large, complex, elegant work | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
that brought together the very best of Haydn's symphonic technique | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
with his love of writing for voices. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:54 | |
It was to prove both popular and influential. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
This vast, ambitious, cosmic work, although not itself a symphony, | 0:44:06 | 0:44:11 | |
opens up a myriad of possibilities for orchestral music. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
On the threshold of the new century, | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
Haydn demonstrated that music could be | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
more than entertainment at a polite social gathering | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
and become a profound and thought-provoking | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
dramatic experience for its audience. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
The last performance Haydn attended | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
was here in a room at the Austrian Academy of Sciences | 0:44:42 | 0:44:45 | |
on 27th March, 1808, a year before he died. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
It was his 76th birthday | 0:44:49 | 0:44:50 | |
and the aged and ill composer was brought in to loud acclamation. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:54 | |
His former pupil Beethoven was also here and apparently wept during the performance. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:59 | |
At the point early on in the piece, | 0:44:59 | 0:45:01 | |
when God creates light, the audience burst out into spontaneous applause. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:06 | |
But Haydn, in response, indicated upwards, as if to say, "Not from me." | 0:45:06 | 0:45:10 | |
"Everything comes from up there." | 0:45:10 | 0:45:13 | |
He became known as the father of the symphony, ie, not necessarily the first, | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
but the person who gave us so many great symphonies | 0:45:33 | 0:45:37 | |
that he managed to explore the potential of the symphonic orchestra of his day. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:43 | |
And that would take the idea of what a symphony could be | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
further and further along the path. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
Haydn, over the course of a long 40-year career, turned out over 100. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:54 | |
Mozart, in his short life, wrote about 40. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:57 | |
Ludwig Van Beethoven wrote only nine. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
But each symphony redrew the musical landscape | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
and threw down a challenge that no future symphonist could possibly ignore. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:08 | |
In 1800, as Europe stood on the threshold of a new century, | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
the Viennese public were treated to the premiere of a new work - | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
Beethoven's first symphony in C Major, | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
which, much to their surprise, began with a discord. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:22 | |
MUSIC: Symphony No 1: 1st Movement by Beethoven | 0:46:22 | 0:46:26 | |
At this point, the symphony was seen primarily as a means of entertainment, | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
not as the vehicle for the exploration of political, social and moral ideas. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
In 1790, the philosopher Kant dismissed instrumental music as more pleasure than culture. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:55 | |
His grounds for this remark were the fact that music couldn't incorporate concepts. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:59 | |
Any ideas it might seem to generate were in his words "accidents". | 0:46:59 | 0:47:04 | |
If you say to me, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:32 | |
"Sum up what makes Beethoven different in one sentence." | 0:47:32 | 0:47:36 | |
He broke the rules. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
This is pure Beethoven, but it is a youthful Beethoven. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:54 | |
But, having said that, he did not complete his first symphony | 0:47:54 | 0:47:57 | |
until he was 29 years of age. | 0:47:57 | 0:47:59 | |
Now, in prodigy terms, that's middle-aged. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
Haydn and Mozart had knocked off loads of symphonies by the time they were 29. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:07 | |
Why did Beethoven wait so long? Because he was aware of the legacy of the likes of Mozart and Haydn. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:15 | |
If the first symphony represents a noble and steady start, | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
then the second is a sudden wrench forwards into the future. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
MUSIC: # Symphony No 2, Scherzo from the 3rd Movement by Beethoven | 0:48:32 | 0:48:37 | |
Premiered in the year that Britain declared war on France | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
it has at its heart the 31-year-old Beethoven's first major symphonic innovation. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:46 | |
He replaces the old-fashioned aristocratic dance movement, | 0:48:46 | 0:48:49 | |
the minuet, with a scherzo, which literally means "joke". | 0:48:49 | 0:48:53 | |
An energetic and sometimes confrontational movement | 0:48:53 | 0:48:55 | |
that captures the speed and violence of early 19th-century urban life. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:59 | |
This is a joke which, repeated often enough, begins to sound like a threat. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:06 | |
It is a crude monster, like a wounded dragon that refuses to die, | 0:49:11 | 0:49:17 | |
writhing and bleeding, lashing out furiously with its tail. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:22 | |
The summer of 1802 he spends in a rural village north of Vienna | 0:49:31 | 0:49:35 | |
called Heiligenstadt. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:37 | |
He's composing his second symphony, but, as he works, | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
he becomes more and more aware that his hearing is starting to fail. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:44 | |
Heiligenstadt was for Beethoven a place of despair. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:49 | |
"Dissatisfied with many things," he wrote, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
"more susceptible than any other person and tormented by my deafness, | 0:49:52 | 0:49:56 | |
I find only suffering in the company of others." | 0:49:56 | 0:49:59 | |
He's acknowledged to himself he's deaf | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
and the great miracle of art is that the moment he's acknowledged it, | 0:50:02 | 0:50:06 | |
we enter what's cornily called the heroic period. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:10 | |
We get the great, great works of art, because he's overcome it. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
MUSIC # Symphony No 3: 1st Movement by Beethoven | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
To tell the next part of the story, we need to return to Paris | 0:50:21 | 0:50:26 | |
and to a hero's grave. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:28 | |
Just as Beethoven defined his era in music, | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
so Napoleon Bonaparte towered over his era in world politics | 0:50:33 | 0:50:37 | |
although, of course, he himself was quite a small man. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
The name of Napoleon was so potent, his military prowess was so fearsome, | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
that he dominated and terrorised Europe for over a dozen years. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:50 | |
After his successful coups d'etat in 1799, he appointed himself First Consul, | 0:50:50 | 0:50:55 | |
a man of the French people, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:56 | |
devoted to restoring the republican virtues of liberty, equality and fraternity | 0:50:56 | 0:51:01 | |
after a decade of gross mismanagement and institutionalised terror so widespread | 0:51:01 | 0:51:06 | |
that the guillotine earned the nickname "the national razor". | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
Beethoven had found the subject for his third and most radical symphony yet. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:19 | |
A work so massive, that its first movement alone | 0:51:19 | 0:51:22 | |
is as long as many of Haydn's early symphonies. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
Eroica, the heroic symphony. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:29 | |
The Eroica is an extraordinary, huge advance on anything anyone had done before. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:35 | |
He was a man of the people, creating art for the people | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
and he thought that was what Napoleon represented. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:40 | |
The Eroica comes to stand for what symphonic composers want to achieve | 0:51:40 | 0:51:47 | |
through their musical works. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:49 | |
The Eroica was a revolutionary piece of work. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:55 | |
Beethoven needed new techniques if he was to express adequately his thoughts about Napoleon, | 0:51:55 | 0:52:00 | |
a man who was affecting such rapid and sweeping changes across Europe, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
a man who many believed would bring peace, security and liberty to a troubled continent. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:10 | |
There was no way that Europe could possibly return to life as it was in the days before 1789 | 0:52:10 | 0:52:15 | |
and there was no looking back to old models for Beethoven. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
The new work just had to be radical, its first performance explosive, | 0:52:19 | 0:52:24 | |
and this is the room where it all happened. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:27 | |
Beethoven's friend, Ferdinand Ries, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
said the composer wrote his symphony with Napoleon Bonaparte in mind, | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
but Napoleon as First Consul. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:01 | |
He held him in great esteem and compared him | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
to the greatest consuls of ancient Rome. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:06 | |
Ferdinand Ries himself saw a beautifully copied manuscript of the symphony | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
lying on Beethoven's table and, on the front page, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
were inscribed the names "Napoleon" at the top and "Beethoven" at the bottom. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:18 | |
But when Beethoven was told that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
he flew into a rage and screamed, "So now he is no more than a common mortal." | 0:53:22 | 0:53:27 | |
"Now he will tread on all the rights of man, | 0:53:27 | 0:53:29 | |
"indulge only his ambition, think himself superior to all men, | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
"become a tyrant." | 0:53:33 | 0:53:34 | |
He went to the table, picked up the manuscript, | 0:53:34 | 0:53:37 | |
ripped the front page in half and threw it on the floor. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, still had 16 more years to live. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:20 | |
But, for Beethoven, it was clear, | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
his greatness had died on the day of his coronation. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
The second movement of the Eroica is a funeral march, | 0:54:27 | 0:54:32 | |
perhaps mourning the loss of a hero. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
When the symphony was published three years later, it bore an inscription - | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
to celebrate the memory of a great man. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
Beethoven lived in more than 60 different places during his 35 years in Vienna. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:53 | |
I joined musicologist Professor John Deathridge to visit this one, | 0:54:57 | 0:55:02 | |
which is typically cramped and out of the way. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
But wherever the composer lodged, there were always two inevitable objects - | 0:55:06 | 0:55:11 | |
a piano and a treasured portrait. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
This is a picture of Beethoven at about the time he wrote his third symphony, the Eroica. Is that right? | 0:55:15 | 0:55:20 | |
That's correct. Painted by a friend of his called Willibrord Mahler, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:25 | |
he played the last movement to the painter | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
and then he continued on improvising for two hours. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:32 | |
What Mahler was interested in was capturing something of the mythological side of the Eroica. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:40 | |
-And this rather awkward stance. -Yes. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:42 | |
A little bit like the Mona Lisa, in a sort of country landscape. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:48 | |
And the eyes are looking askance. I often think that this hand here, | 0:55:48 | 0:55:53 | |
it's a very strong hand, | 0:55:53 | 0:55:54 | |
has something to do with his impression of Beethoven | 0:55:54 | 0:55:57 | |
playing the last movement of the Eroica. | 0:55:57 | 0:56:01 | |
It was clearly a very important painting for Beethoven because he took it with him everywhere. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:06 | |
Why did he like it? I'm tempted to say vanity. He looks rather good in this. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
It represents for him, I think, something very important about his role as a symphonic composer. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:15 | |
"I am here in the world as a composer and this is what my symphonies are going to be." | 0:56:15 | 0:56:20 | |
I feel that the third symphony is like on the threshold of another age. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:55 | |
It's written because he wanted to answer | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
what he felt was the scale of Napoleon's achievements | 0:56:58 | 0:57:02 | |
and the normal symphony wouldn't have been enough. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
Do you think he saw himself as a hero? | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
That's a very difficult question to answer. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
I feel sure that he knew he had the capacity in him | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
that was given to very few other creators and that he owed it to himself | 0:57:22 | 0:57:28 | |
to find the extent of the depth of his talent, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:34 | |
which is why he kept pushing the boundaries further and further to create more emotional truth. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:39 | |
I think he felt that he had an heroic capacity as a creator | 0:57:39 | 0:57:45 | |
to take music to a place that nobody thought it could ever go. | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
And he would not stop here. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
There were six more symphonies still to come. | 0:57:55 | 0:57:58 | |
His encroaching deafness would strengthen his almost heroic willpower | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
and give his music a sense of profound, universal compassion. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:07 | |
After the Eroica, anything was possible. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:09 | |
And he symphony took its place as music's most expressive and articulate form. | 0:58:09 | 0:58:13 | |
To go deeper into the music | 0:58:17 | 0:58:19 | |
and unravel the secrets of the symphony, | 0:58:19 | 0:58:21 | |
follow the links to the Open University at: | 0:58:21 | 0:58:28 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:36 | 0:58:38 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:38 | 0:58:40 |