Haydn: The "Paris" Symphonies

In 1784, Austrian Franz Josef Haydn received a commission to compose for an influential concert series in France. The six symphonies that resulted (Nos. 82-87) are the subject of Bernard Harrison’s book Haydn: The ‘Paris’ Symphonies. Like other volumes of the prestigious Cambridge Music Handbook series, Harrison’s guide includes historical background, critical reception, a performance history, and musical analyses. As the author notes in his opening chapters, the so-called “Paris” symphonies have been overshadowed by Haydn’s later works for London, yet they mark an important stage in Haydn’s career, in the reception of his works, and in the assessment of the genre as a whole.

The book opens with some general background to the symphonies, including an overview of their earliest publications. Chapter 2 then traces the development of what eventually amounted to a “prolonged Haydnfest” in Paris (24). Haydn’s symphonies were performed only sporadically until a 1781 performance of his Stabat Mater (ironically a vocal work largely unfamiliar to modern audiences) sparked the composer’s rapidly increasing popularity with the Parisian public. Drawing on reviews and concert programs, Harrison amply demonstrates that by the late 1780s Haydn’s works dominated the symphonic repertory in the city. In fact, more than eighty-five percent of the symphonies performed between 1788-1790 at the Concert spirituel were by Haydn. Given that the composer’s overwhelming success in Paris predates his more celebrated London sojourns, the author concludes that “the success of Haydn’s music in Paris is therefore no less extensive or significant than the composer’s more copiously documented triumphs” of the next decade (24). Moreover, Harrison offers convincing evidence that “the hegemony of the German symphony, more often associated in the modern literature with Beethoven and the nineteenth century,” was already present in French criticism during the 1780s (16).

Haydn: The ‘Paris’ Symphonies also addresses how the composer’s music intersects with eighteenth-century aesthetic and cultural concerns, including the status of instrumental music, conceptions of genius, definitions of wit and irony, and ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ taste. Haydn’s symphonies gradually became the model by which others were judged; many of the qualities ascribed to them in the Parisian press (originality, naturalness, their exemplary quality) are also found in contemporaneous definitions of genius, including Immanuel Kant’s. Why Haydn’s symphonies were viewed as incorporating both ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ elements is the primary subject of Chapters 3 and 4. As Harrison notes, the inclusion of sophisticated techniques without sacrificing intelligibility not only appealed to a wide spectrum of listeners, it also fostered the perception of instrumental music as a fine art as opposed to mere entertainment.

Detailed musical analyses of each symphony (Chapters 5-8) continue these themes. Chapter 5 on Nos. 82 and 86 shows how these works balance appealing melodies and majestic orchestral effects that are more popular in character with sophisticated harmonic and formal surprises. Similarly, Harrison’s analyses of Symphonies Nos. 84 and 87 (Chapter 8 ) concentrate on how their extensive woodwind solos and lyrical themes were compatible with Parisian popular tastes. In comparison, Symphony No. 83 is much more ‘learned’ in tone (Chapter 7). Harrison links the extreme contrasts of mood and texture that fill No. 83 with Voltaire’s definition of wit: “‘the art of bringing together two things apparently remote, or of dividing two things that seem to be united, or of opposing them to each other’” (86). The stern opening movement of the first movement, for instance, incongruously gives way to a comic, chirping theme; a misaccented, seemingly “clumsy” minuet is paired with a “graceful, dance-like Trio” (87). These “bizarre juxtapositions” may also reflect a developing sense of detached, self-conscious creation (86). The very eccentricities of the symphony call attention to the creator behind it, a compositional strategy that some writers of the time likened to Laurence Sterne’s prose (86-88; see also Mark Evan Bonds, “Haydn, Laurence Sterne, and the Origins of Musical Irony,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 44 [1991]: 57-91).

In addition to discussing eighteenth-century perspectives on Haydn’s music, Harrison addresses issues of importance to twentieth and twenty-first-century scholars as well, while gently reminding readers that our preoccupations with sonata forms, motivic development, and multi-movement unity were not necessarily shared by eighteenth-century listeners. For example, modern writers have focused on how the outer movements of Symphony No. 85 challenge formal conventions. Harrison agrees with this assessment (Chapter 6) but also notes that the symphony’s middle movements stress graceful melodies, orchestral color, and readily comprehendible forms. He argues that maintaining an equilibrium between the original and the conventional is precisely what Haydn’s audiences found appealing; the “Paris” symphonies, particularly No. 85, preserve the “appearance of conventionality” while stretching it at the same time (77-80). One of the strengths of Harrison’s book is that he too maintains an equilibrium: He manages to balance modern concerns and concepts with eighteenth-century ones. That he discusses the minuet movements (which often get overlooked) with care is another strong point of the book.

A few aspects could be improved, however. Given that the Cambridge Music Handbook series is aimed at “the student and music lover” (www.publishing.cambridge.org/hss/music/chhp), Harrison could make it clearer that audiences were still the upper echelon of society and give more information in the opening chapters about typical concert programs, the various concert series in Paris, and how Haydn’s music was being received elsewhere. Also, a number of the “Paris” symphonies are known by their nicknames (e.g., “La Poule,” “The Bear,” “La Reine”). Curiously, he discusses their origins in some cases and not in others.

But these are small concerns. All in all, Haydn: The ‘Paris’ Symphonies is a clear, concise guide to the six works and to important aesthetic issues surrounding them. Because Harrison, like Haydn, effectively revisits and expands upon themes introduced in earlier chapters, the book is a pleasure to read. It provides a valuable introduction to some of Haydn’s most engaging music and to how Enlightenment thought and eighteenth-century musical values intertwine.