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

of Symphonies no.3 and 40, but the way in which the winds bear the entire thematic
burden against independent figuration from the first violins has an almost crystalline
clarity. The tutti entry at b.233 has a curious combination of orchestral opulence and
textural asceticism: the entire orchestra is playing, fortissimo, but the texture consists
of only two voices, doubled throughout the ensemble. The most remarkable thing
about this passage is the extent to which, referencing only the first three bars of the
rondo theme and developing it in an utterly different manner, it serves as a perfectly
adequate recapitulation of this theme. Clearly, a rhetorical preparation for the return,
arrival on the tonic, and thematic incipit are in this case all that are required for a
satisfactory recapitulation. One can test this by comparing the final quotation of the
theme in bb.250-57 to the apparently similar passage in bb.186-89 of the finale of
Symphony no.95. Both are quiet reharmonisations of the first few bars of the theme,
occurring near the end of the movement. But while that of Symphony no.101 is
merely the recollection of a recapitulation which has already occurred, the passage
from Symphony no.95 has to do the entire thematic work of the recapitulation all by
itself—even though it actually starts in the wrong key. In Symphony no.101, Haydn’s
ability to generate an entirely new and original development, precisely at the point
where most composers (including perhaps Haydn himself in some of the symphonies
of the 1780s) would be getting tired and be satisfied with a further repetition of the
rondo theme, gives an extraordinary sense of his reserves of creative strength. It is not
for nothing that Landon speaks of this movement’s ‘excellent claim to being the
greatest symphonic last movement of Haydn’s career’. 20
For thoroughgoing contrapuntal integration, however, it is hard to overlook the
finale of no.103 (‘Drumroll’). What appears at first to be the theme is only an
accompaniment in the horns to the real theme which appears in b.5. A repeated-note
anacrusis, an appoggiatura, then an ascending scale from B flat to G—there is really
20 Landon, Chronicle and works, III, p.575.
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