Symphony No. 45 in F# minor, "Farewell"
Franz Joseph Haydn
(b. March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria; d. May 31, 1809 in Vienna)

“Papa” Haydn was more than a composer who oversaw fulfillment of the promise of the Classical era, bringing it to the doorstep of Romanticism that Beethoven and others could take up even as he still lived into the 19th century. He had extraordinary diplomatic skills as well and a razor sharp wit that he could wield with subtlety when necessary, or with slapstick abandon if he knew his audience would laugh with him.

Diplomacy and wit were written into the Farewell Symphony. Although Haydn’s fame in 1772 was considerable, his lot in life was that of a servant who wore a uniform while carrying out his duties to royalty. He would be among the first composers to achieve his emancipation, but that was still more than 15 years away.

In 1772 he was effectively indentured to Prince Esterházy’s estate. The prince, Nickolaus I, was Haydn’s patron, but could and did take Haydn and all the court musicians a full day’s journey away from their home in Eisenstadt to Nickolaus’ summer palace at Eszterháza. As the summer visit dragged on much longer than they expected, the orchestra players who wanted to get back home to their wives and children appealed to Haydn to deal with their predicament. Haydn obliged with a new symphony for the next evening concert at Eszterháza.

The new symphony followed a typical four-movement pattern into the final movement that began unremarkably at presto tempo. About a third of the way through, a new adagio section began–shocking! What was happening here? After about two minutes, one oboist and one hornist snuffed their candles and walked off the stage. Musicians departed one or a few at a time. Finally just two muted violins remained, one played by concertmaster Luigi Tomasini and the other by Haydn.

Apparently Nickolaus understood the message and did not take offense. Everyone returned home to Eisenstadt the next day.

In hurrying to the punchline many interesting details were left out. First, Haydn chose an unprecedented key. Musicologist James Webster asserts that it is the only known 18th century symphony written in F# minor. The valveless natural horns of the time had to have special slides made to play in F#. Haydn’s purchase orders for these were found in the Esterházy papers, adding proof that the symphony was written and performed in the fall of 1772.

While we know that Symphony No. 45 got a lot of play in Haydn’s lifetime, we also know that the subtitle, Farewell, would have been meaningless to those audiences, and was only applied to the work over a century later. Haydn finally told the story of how the last movement went down and why only shortly before his death as his biographers took notes.

Even today each of the symphony’s four movements is exciting to listen to because doing the expected thing is rarely what Haydn did. The first movement features dissonant three-note clusters, repeated and repeated again a tone lower. Unexpected silences are a hallmark, also appearing in later movements.

The slow movement also pauses and what comes next is unpredictable although it is all beautifully moving.

The menuet movement is harmonically bizarre and cadences are sapped of their energy by landing on weak 3rd beats.

In the final movement beyond what was described previously, silence again opens the door for the new slow adagio. As the instruments stop playing and exit, many of them play a solo before they take their leave. When the double bass has a solo, well, Mahler gave the double bass a solo in the 3rd movement of his “Titan” Symphony–a famous rendering of Frère Jacques nursery tune in minor mode. But Haydn’s bass solo was the first in a symphony by more than a hundred years.

© 2013, 2019, 2023, 2025 by Steven Hollingsworth,
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Contact: steve@trecorde.net