How Vienna Helped Shape the Symphony

 by Habina Seo

Golden Hall of Musikverein, Vienna (Wiki Commons)

The symphony’s origins can be traced back to a ‘Sinfonia’, which is a short instrumental piece as an introduction to a longer piece, or a stand-alone instrumental work (such as a Concerto Grosso), for a small orchestra. Its 3-movement structure would consist of fast-slow-fast movements for Italian opera sinfonias, such as Scarlatti’s Sinfonia in C major (Presto - Andante - Allegrissimo). Increasingly at the turn of the century in Vienna, the royal and imperial court were overtaken as a source of patronage by the nobility, especially for instrumental music. This allowed the start of the development of the sinfonia into a multi-movement orchestral piece with a dominant instrument, much like a concerto. An example of this would be Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D major, where the two solo violins have melodically dominant roles, and this piece even foresees the adagio introduction which would be common in much later symphonies (Haydn 104, Beethoven no.1, Mozart no.36). The greater degree of focus and heightened expectation of the audiences to hear something musically logical and coherent changed the mindset of composers and thus the nature of symphonies. 

Due to its rather central geographical location (surrounded by essentially what was the rest of Europe) and the power of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time, Vienna had an abundant infrastructure for musical production and consumption, where diversity of opportunity acted as a powerful generator for the city’s rich and varied musical life, as well as its wealth attracting nearby musicians from all around (especially Italian composers of earlier operatic style music where the overtures later developed into standalone works- for instance, Salieri’s symphonies composed in his early years in Vienna came after his stronger operatic works). As a result of these conditions, the symphony grew in popularity for the public masses, and were beginning to be performed at the centre of attention of a more eclectic audience, who were there for the music (i.e. it was the focus of a musical programme). This in turn allowed composers, such as Johann Stamitz in the Mannheim orchestra who established a reputation for its orchestral concerts around the 1750s, to be more expressive as an artist rather than those who wrote commissions for royal families and trained students. Haydn, for instance, worked for the Esterházy establishment until 1779, when his contract was renegotiated so that all his work was available to more people (publishers), including symphonic works for public concerts. Having this new sense of freedom allowed for more humorous and artistically daring elements to be included in his music (such as the ‘Surprise’ symphony which has its nickname from the suddenly fortissimo G chord at the end of the opening theme). 

With an increased sense of personal expression and a feeling of having to address and impress a large, paying audience in greater concert hall spaces particularly in Vienna, certain musical changes had occurred by the 1760s: at least two contrasting, recapitulated themes, an emerging recognition of the importance of contrast over uniformity, and symmetry and proportion as regulative elements of the structure. For instance, compare the two relatively similar themes of the 1st movement of Samartini’s symphony in F with one of Haydn’s earlier symphonies (D minor no.26, composed in the late 1760s), where the contrast can be heard in the tonality, rhythm, and melodic characteristics, as well as having a more developed structure preceding the sonata form that would be established later on. 

The demanding Viennese audiences would go on to encourage late Classical developments, as well as early symphonic elements. For instance, there is a distinct change in mindset towards the orchestration of wind parts in the shift from the Classical to Romantic period. Composers during this time would often exploit the exciting new colour provided by wind sections, by emphasizing the importance of the woodwind and brass in an orchestra, providing more intricate and thicker textures of wind parts, as opposed to having much of the musical interest in the strings. Examples include Mendelssohn’s use of woodwind to create a light, airy sound in his Italian symphony, and Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ symphony, where there are antiphonal moments between the woodwind and strings, as well as an increased horn section and important clarinet writing (a late Classical instrument). The sonority and timbre created by a more significant wind section is something the audience would find both impressive and refreshing to listen to, as well as composers appreciating the complexity of writing for a larger orchestra for a larger audience.

 A progressive, influential dialogue between professionals working with the materials of their symphonic craft allowed an increasing sophistication with which formal functions within movements were segmented. With increasing musical complexity came longer symphonies, more movements emerged with a heightened sense of continuity and story-telling (to an extent, as this was mostly demonstrated in the Romantic period of symphonic music). Therefore, the relation between the movements was less casual, and the complexity of the music was increasing (especially with Vanhal’s pioneering orchestration, as shown in his D minor Symphony, where he uses at least five horns, giving him a wide range of notes and allowing the horns’ full participation in the exploitation of expressive harmonic potential^[1]), which led to the majority of symphonies being in four movements with a finale that was much more developed to provide a sense of closure and as a counterpole to the opening movement (rather than binary form, final movements tended towards rondo or sonata forms, to emphasise the importance of resolution). Haydn’s symphony 104 demonstrates this development, with a fourth movement lasting almost as long as the first movement, structured in a sonata form (with elements of rondo form) including a fully developed recapitulation in which multiple keys are explored and thematic and harmonic transformation (e.g. diminished harmonies, modulations to the subdominant G major, then its relative minor of E, and later B minor as a relative minor of D). The Sturm-und-Drang idiom that was sweeping Viennese music in the early 1770s is seen in much of this section of Haydn’s 104. Such examples of extended structure and musical development can be traced back to Georg Matthias Monn (1717-50), whose first-movement forms arguably feature a more strongly defined developmental purpose to the material immediately following the central dominant or equivalent cadence than those of his contemporary. He was credited with composing the first four-movement symphony, in which the minuet comes in third place.

As mentioned earlier, the increasing demand created by the rise of larger concert halls in Vienna and a paying public expanded the orchestra and thus the nature of the symphony. Perhaps subconsciously, the music composed changed to fill the physical demand of the volume of the performing venues, with increasingly large orchestras with a new variety of orchestra sounds and contrasts. This may have been a result of the larger volume and greater reverberation times that the new concert halls, often shoebox shaped to reflect sound laterally, These changes was particularly noticeable when moving from Classical to Mature Classical and Romantic symphonic music. Beethoven’s symphonies demonstrate this change, when comparing his earlier work from the Classical period (his 1^st period – e.g. Symphony no.1) with his later works in the early Romantic era (his 3^rd period- e.g. Symphony no. 9). Not only is the orchestra expanded, but the length and complexity of rhythmic, harmonic, structural and motivic development is significantly increased, especially in comparison to early Classical symphonies such as those of Stamitz and early Haydn.