The Symphony No. 97 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/97, is the fifth of the so-called twelve London Symphonies

London symphonies

The London symphonies, sometimes called the Salomon symphonies after the man who introduced London to Joseph Haydn, were composed by Joseph Haydn between 1791 and 1795...

 (numbers 93-104) written 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...

. It was completed in 1792

1792 in music

-Events:*April 13 – Joseph Martin Kraus's Symphonie funèbre is played at the funeral of Gustavus III of Sweden.-Popular Music:*"Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin" aka "La Marseillaise" by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle* "The Irish Washerwoman" trad...

 as part of the set of symphonies composed on his first trip to London. It was first performed at the Hanover Square Rooms

Hanover Square Rooms

The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the...

 in London on 3 or 4 May 1792. First published in England, it made its way to the continent a few years later and was used by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 as a model for a symphony in C major he never completed, and by Friedrich Witt

Friedrich Witt

Friedrich Jeremias Witt was a German composer and cellist. He is perhaps best known as the likely author of a Symphony in C major known as the Jena Symphony, once attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven.-Biography:...

 for the Jena Symphony

Jena Symphony

The so-called "Jena Symphony" is a symphony that was at one time attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven. The symphony was discovered by Fritz Stein in 1909 in the archives of a concert society in Jena, from which it derived its name. Stein believed it to be the work of Beethoven and it was so...

.

Movements

The work is in standard four movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

 form and scored for two 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...

s, 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...

.

1. Adagio - Vivace, 3/4
2. Adagio ma non troppo, 2/2 in F major
   F major
   F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...
   
   
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...
   
    e Trio. Allegretto, 3/4
4. Finale: Presto assai, 2/4

After a slow introduction which deliberately avoids establishing C major, the main theme of the first movement is a fanfare that emphasizes the three notes of the C major triad.



The second subject is a landler

Ländler

The ländler is a folk dance in 3/4 time which was popular in Austria, south Germany and German Switzerland at the end of the 18th century.It is a dance for couples which strongly features hopping and stamping...

 that makes use of pizzicato in the bass.



The second movement is a set of F major variations

Variation (music)

In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...

 with an irregular episode in F minor and a 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 variation following the minore episode, Haydn the unusual sul ponticello marking instructing the violins to play with the bow near the bridge creating a "glassy" or "metallic" sound.

For the final eight bars of the Trio of the minuet, Haydn instructs the concertmaster

Concertmaster

The concertmaster/mistress is the spalla or leader, of the first violin section of an orchestra. In the UK, the term commonly used is leader...

 ("Salomon

Johann Peter Salomon

Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario.-Life:...

Solo" in the score) to play an octave above the rest of the first violins.