Orchestra della Svizzera italiana

In 1768, two years after Joseph Haydn had been appointed Kapellmeister at the Esterházy Court in Eisenstadt, his house burnt down. He had only recently moved in, and commentators still speculate about whether this disaster was the reason for the gloomy mood of his Symphony No. 49 in f minor. Either way, it is hardly surprising that a copyist in Leipzig later gave the work the nickname “La passione”. The three-note figure at the outset circling a minor third (C, D flat, B flat) and the subsequent sighing motifs all make it abundantly clear that this is not going to be a cheerful affair, quite in contrast to many other works by Haydn. This symphony is weighty and full of dramatic intensity – and there are reasons to assume that it was intended as incidental music for a play. All the same, the apparent title of the play in question, “The good-humoured quaker”, doesn’t exactly match the sombre mood that pervades the symphony.

While Haydn was investing his time and energies composing for his Esterházy prince, he also taught a certain Fridolin (“Fritz”) von Weber, a member of the Esterházy orchestra and brother of the famous opera composer Carl Maria, who for his part studied with Joseph Haydn’s brother Michael in Salzburg. In 1809, Carl dedicated his Andante e Rondo ungarese (“Andante and Hungarian Rondo”) for viola and orchestra to his brother Fritz, and four years later he reworked its two movements for bassoon and orchestra – a process for which he used the metallurgical metaphor of “completely ‘remelting’” it. It was this new version that subsequently became famous, at which the original for viola was largely forgotten. It is played here by Antoine Tamestit, one of the most accomplished violists on the concert scene today, who will also direct the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana from the soloist’s podium.

The programme is rounded off by Brahms’s Second Serenade in A major op. 16, in which we can hear the results of his intensive study of Haydn’s symphonies. This Serenade was composed for winds and low strings and was given its first performance in 1860 in Hamburg under the baton of the composer. Brahms was notorious for his self-doubts, but for once he seemed pleased with his work. Later, while he was making a new arrangement of it, he even wrote that “I have rarely taken such pleasure in writing notes”. This was in its way as uncharacteristic of Brahms as was the serious mood of the f-minor symphony No. 49 for Joseph Haydn.