Joshua Weilerstein conducts the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra this afternoon in a concert from MediaCityUK, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
This is a concert is full of ‘firsts’ – or, to be more precise, the first symphonies of four celebrated composers of the Classical period: Haydn, Mozart, E Bach and Beethoven. Today, we’ll hear the development of the symphony throughout the eighteenth century via the immense talents of these titans.
Joseph Haydn’s influence on the symphony was immeasurable, and it was during his lifetime that the symphony came to be regarded as the most exalted form a composer could use. Haydn has come to be known as the ‘Father of the symphony’ and he ended his career an international celebrity, a million miles from his origins as a plucky freelancer hoping for a break. His first stroke of luck was to secure a permanent role as Kapellmeister with a Bohemian aristocrat, in whose employ he composed 13 symphonies, starting with Symphony No. 1 in D. He would go on to publish more than 90 other symphonies in a career spanning several decades.
Haydn was already in his early thirties when a German child prodigy came to write his own first symphony. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was just eight years old and on a grand tour of Europe with his family when he embarked on Symphony No. 1 in E flat (K 16). An exercise in beautiful simplicity, it speaks to the young composer’s interest in Johann Christian Bach, whose brother Carl Philipp Emanuel we hear from next.
E Bach’s Sinfonia in D recalls the origins of the symphonic form in the Baroque period, whilst exploring an exciting ‘Sturm und Drang’ sound, full of rousing action and high emotion.
With such esteemed elders, a young Ludwig van Beethoven had his pick of inspiration, and yet his own voice rings clear and true in his own first symphony. In fact, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II is reported to have said, “There is something revolutionary in that music!” upon hearing the premiere in 1800. And thus, on the cusp of the Romantic period, the symphony began to look to the future, in the hands of a true visionary.
