Symphony No.4 in D major

The founder of classical instrumental forms, popularly known as the "father" of the symphony and the string quartet, FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN has left a legacy of 104 famous symphonies (some researchers believe there were 108 in total) that paved the way for the genre through the ages. Along with the late mature opuses invariably present in the modern orchestral repertoire, however, his early symphonies are of no less interest. In the young musician's complex path, which began at the age of six as a choirboy at St Stephen's Church in Vienna and then passed through difficult years without steady work, a happy moment was his meeting with the Austrian nobleman Carl Josef von Fürnberg, an amateur musician, in whose home Haydn was invited to chamber music-making and wrote his first quartets. Thanks to Fürnberg's recommendation, in 1758 he entered the service of the Czech Count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin as Kapellmeister and composer of chamber music. It was there, between 1757 and 1761, that his SYMPHONY No. 4 was composed. Unlike his earlier Symphony No. 3 in four movements, Haydn here reverts back to the early classical type of 3-movement structure, with contrasting movements. The energetic opening Presto is followed by an Andante whose broadly sweeping melodic line in the strings is thickened by the accompanying syncopated pulse in the second violins. The finale has the typical Haydn character of a Menuet, but in 3/8 instead of the usual 3/4.