The Symphony No. 63 in C major

C major

C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....

, Hoboken I/63, is a symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 by Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

 written sometime between 1779

1779 in music

- Events :*April – The London Magazine reports on the organ-playing of three-year-old prodigy William Crotch.*December 26 – Teatro alla Scala in Milan opens its operatic carnival season with Josef Mysliveček's new opera Armida....

 and 1781

1781 in music

- Events :*March - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart moves to Vienna to pursue his career, but is passed over in favour of Antonio Salieri as music teacher of Princess of Württemberg....

. It is often known by the title of the second movement, La Roxelane, named for Roxelana

Roxelana

Haseki Hürrem Sultan was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" , and Polish...

, the influential wife of Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...

 of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. This second movement was originally part of Haydn's incidental music for Charles Simon Favart

Charles Simon Favart

Charles Simon Favart was a French dramatist.Born in Paris, the son of a pastry-cook, he was educated at the college of Louis-le-Grand, and after his father's death he carried on the business for a time...

's stage work Soliman der zweite (or Les Trois Sultanes) in which Roxelana was a character.

Instrumentation

There are two versions of this symphony: the so-called "first version" is scored for flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

, two oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, two bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, two horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, two trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

 and strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

, while the "second version" has the same scoring but with only one bassoon and no trumpets or timpani. Part of the reason for this rescoring was the departure of bassoonist Ignatz Drobny from Esterhazy

Esterházy

The House of Esterházy was a Hungarian noble family in Hungary beginning in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century they were among the great landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the time it was part of the Habsburg Empire and later Austria-Hungary.-History:The Esterházys arose...

, leaving Haydn's orchestra with only one bassoon.

Movements

The two versions are not only differently scored; the third and fourth movements of both versions are also totally different. The first version of the finale is based on an old fragment from c. 1769-73 and is viewed by some musicologists as a stop-gap to perhaps complete the symphony early to fulfill the need for a performance.

First Version

1. Allegro

2. "La Roxelane" Allegretto (o più tosto allegro)

3. Menuetto

Minuet

A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...

 & Trio

4. Finale: Prestissimo

Second Version

3. Menuetto

Minuet

A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...

 & Trio

4. Finale: Presto.

The first movement is derived from the overture to Haydn's opera Il mondo della luna

Il mondo della luna

Il mondo della luna , Hob. 28/7, is an opera buffa by Joseph Haydn with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, first performed at Eszterháza, Hungary on 3 August 1777. Goldoni's libretto had previously been set by four other composers, first by the composer Baldassare Galuppi and performed in Venice in the...

. This was done by transforming the curtain-raising transitional ending into one that is more cadential, adding the appropriate expositional repeats to conform more sonata form and transposing one of the overtures two bassoon parts up an octave so that it could be played by the flute. The exposition still retains some of its overture-like feel as the first theme group is in ternary form and it lacks a true second theme, transitioning straight into an expositional coda

Coda (music)

Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

. In the recapitulation, only the third part of the ternary first them group is restated.

The "La Roxelane" second movement is in double variation

Double variation

The double variation is a musical form used in classical music. It is a type of theme and variations that employs two themes. In a double variation set, a first theme is followed by a second theme , followed by a variation on A, then a variation on B, and so on with alternating A and B...

 form. (ABA₁B₁A₂B₂)

The trio of the minuet features solo oboe and solo bassoon playing over pizzicato

Pizzicato

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....

string accompaniment.