Marianne Danckwardt: Hornsignale in Joseph Haydns Sinfonien

Joseph Haydn employed the eighteenth-century practice of integrating horn signals in art music in three symphonies. Whereas the signal is barely distinguishable from its surroundings in the fourth movement of Symphony no. 73, its effect in the first movement of Symphony no. 72 is that of an alien body. In both cases there is no development of the signal during the movement, and it is merely restated in the reprise in its expected harmonic transposition. Conversely, the contrasting interplay between the strings and the signal in the first movement of Symphony no. 31 bears fruitful results—it becomes the movement’s “theme.” Haydn’s ever-present delight in experimentation leads here to a new compositional paradigm: the structuring of a movement as a process. Haydn later achieved this same goal without the use of extra-symphonic “intrusions.”

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