A symphony for an ill-fated queen
Three years before being arrested with her husband in Varennes, and seven years before being beheaded, Marie Antoinette of Austria attended, in February 1786, delighted with life, the performance of a couple of symphonies by Haydn in the salons of the Tuileries Palace. She heard, among others, the Symphony in B-flat, whose music she fell in love with, and so she commented that same evening to her hostesses, while they lavished her with their care. The symphony became one of her favorite pieces, and hence the nickname, "The Queen", the only one of the so-called Paris Symphonies that earned a nickname in the eighteenth century, and which did not lose renown after the unfortunate end of the Queen Consort.
The previous year, Joseph Haydn had learned of the commission for six symphonies to be performed before the French court by the renowned orchestra Concert de la Loge Olympique, an ensemble founded in that innovative decade under the generous patronage of Claude-François-Marie Rigoley, Count of Ogny. The fees were set at thirty gold Louis for each symphony, which amounted to 180 Louis for the total, a considerable amount for the time —and for this one as well (googling, I have learned that the total amounts to the equivalent of 50,000 today's dollars).
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| Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) |
Such retribution testifies to the wide fame enjoyed by the maestro, who devoted himself with enthusiasm to the task. By the end of that year, 1785, he completed the first three symphonies. At the beginning of the following year, he finished the remaining three. The six symphonies, which, as already mentioned, are known today as the Paris Symphonies, were generally warmly received, and the maestro was commissioned to write another set of three symphonies, which he completed in 1788-89.
Symphony No. 85, in B-flat major, "The Queen".
Haydn was aware that the Concert de la Loge Olympique had a large number of instrumentalists, perhaps three times the twenty or twenty-five musicians he had at Esterháza. So the maestro felt at ease to compose, without instrumental restrictions. Above all, he took advantage of the opportunities that this license offered him to achieve effects that would have been impossible with a reduced orchestra. The Symphony in B-flat, in four movements, is a brilliant example of this.
Movements:
00:00 Adagio - Vivace — Remarkable for its quiet introduction, and for the main theme.
10:50 Romanze. Allegretto — Theme and variations, on a French ballad of the time.
16:44 Menuetto - Trio — Some Haydian mood.
20:45 Finale. Presto — Alternating sonata and rondo form.
The rendition is by the American ensemble Ars Lyrica Houston.
