Working for the musically ravenous Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and spending much of each year at a remote country palace, Haydn acknowledged, “I was forced to become original.” One new direction he explored in the late 1760s and early 1770s was the Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) aesthetic that was also cropping up in the theater, literature and artwork of the time. This tendency toward heightened emotion and drama led Haydn to compose symphonies in minor keys for the first time; he completed seven such works in that period, including the Symphony No. 44 in E Minor that he finished by 1772.

Haydn purportedly asked for the slow movement of this symphony to be played at his funeral, and even though no such memorial performance took place it was enough to attach the nickname of “Mourning” to the work. The opening Allegro con brio movement sounds more like passion and angst than mourning, with motives emphasizing tense dissonances that yearn to resolve toward more settled tones.

The E-minor tonality carries over to the Menuet, appearing second instead of its usual position as the third movement. (Haydn was a pioneer of the four-movement symphony, inserting a Menuet within the existing fast-slow-fast structure; this early example experimented with an alternative placement.) The Menuet functions as a strict canon, with the bass instruments following exactly a measure behind the violins.

Haydn may have wanted it at his funeral—a wish apparently not honored—but the beautiful Adagio is the least mournful music in this symphony, with its long, arcing phrases delivered by muted strings in the sweet key of E major. The turbulence of E minor returns for a brisk finale filled with unison exclamations that echo the texture of the opening movement.

Aaron Grad ©2016