J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

and the finale is—more or less—fugal. Is it possible that Haydn first seriously
engaged with the Gradus around the time he was writing this symphony?
The finale shows how far Austrian contrapuntal norms were from the style of J.
S. Bach. Both in thematic material and fugal technique it betrays a clear debt to Fux’s
Gradus ad Parnassum, with a subject in first species against voices in fifth species.
So much so, in fact, that it is also a long way from the late-Baroque instrumental style
of Caldara, Werner, Tuma, Monn, 14 and Fux himself. The Gradus is a manual of
unaccompanied vocal counterpoint (notionally in the style of Palestrina), and it was
only in the second half of the eighteenth century that composers began to import this
style literally into instrumental music.
The closing movement—the first instrumental fugue Haydn is known to have
written—is a powerfully integrated movement, an unexpectedly coherent fusion of
fugal and sonata principles. Neither the subject (Ex.3.1) nor the counterpoint shows
any trace of Haydn’s usual melodic style. This almost ostentatious impersonality is
offset by two factors. Firstly, the dynamic marking (‘pp’) contrasts strongly with the
usual contemporary practice of performing strict counterpoint in a uniform forte, a sort
of debased Baroque ‘historical performance practice’. 15 Secondly, Haydn begins
14 Monn’s fame as author of the first known four-movement symphony in the later Viennese manner
has obscured the fact that much of his work is in an extremely competent but conservative late
Baroque style.
15 See W. Kirkendale, Fugue and fugato in rococo and classical chamber music (Durham, N.C.: Duke
University Press, 1979), pp.75-76. The string quartet fugues op.20 are likewise marked ‘sempre
sotto voce’.
203