Haydn Symphony No. 104 in D major, the London Symphony (set work): the four movements, the slow introduction and sonata-form first movement, the songful slow movement, the minuet and trio, and the rondo-sonata finale, with their structure, orchestration and harmony.

What this dot point is asking

This is one of the two WJEC set works in Area of Study A. It asks you to analyse Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D major, the London Symphony, across its four movements: the structure (especially sonata form), the orchestration, the harmony and the character. You must be able to discuss the music with reference to the score, name keys and forms, and locate features.

The answer

First movement: slow introduction and sonata form

The contrast between the dark minor introduction and the bright major Allegro is a striking opening gesture. Sonata form gives the movement its argument: tension built in the development by modulation and fragmentation, resolved when everything returns in D major.

Second movement: the slow movement

The second movement is a lyrical Andante in G major (the subdominant), song-like and graceful, providing repose after the weighty first movement. It explores its melody with variation and decoration, moves to contrasting keys (including darker minor episodes) for drama, and returns to its serene opening. The texture is largely homophonic, with the strings singing the melody and woodwind adding colour.

Third movement: minuet and trio

Though stylised, the minuet keeps its dance roots in triple metre and clear phrasing. The trio offers contrast of texture and colour, a moment of relief before the energetic finale.

Fourth movement: the finale

The finale is a fast Allegro spiritoso in sonata-rondo form, bright and energetic, in D major. It famously opens with a folk-like theme over a sustained drone in the bass (a bagpipe or musette effect), giving a rustic, open-air character. Haydn develops the material with wit and rhythmic drive, contrasting tutti and lighter scoring, and rounds off the symphony brilliantly in the home key. The home-key endings of the first movement and finale frame the whole work.

Orchestration and harmony throughout

The symphony uses a Classical orchestra: strings, pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and timpani. Haydn contrasts full tutti with lighter chamber-like scoring, lets the woodwind colour and echo themes, and uses timpani and brass to reinforce cadences and climaxes. The harmony is largely diatonic and functional, built on clear tonic, dominant and subdominant relationships, with cadences marking the structure, though Haydn enriches it with chromatic touches, secondary dominants and bold key contrasts (the D minor introduction against the D major Allegro).

Examples in context

Model paragraph (the sonata-form first movement). Haydn frames the first movement with a contrast that the whole symphony then resolves. The Adagio introduction in D minor is grave and ceremonial, its dotted rhythms and falling lines casting a shadow that the bright D major Allegro dispels. The exposition is economical: rather than inventing a wholly new second subject, Haydn reworks his first subject in the dominant, a monothematic stroke that gives the movement unity. The development is where the tension lives, fragmenting motifs and driving them through remoter keys, before the recapitulation restores order by bringing both ideas home to D major. The orchestra underlines the design, full tutti and timpani marking the structural pillars while woodwind soften the lyrical moments, so form and colour work together.

Try this

Q1. In what key and tempo does the first movement's introduction begin? [2 marks]

• Cue. Slow (Adagio) and in D minor, before the D major Allegro.

Q2. What is unusual about the second subject of the first movement? [2 marks]

• Cue. It is derived from the first subject (monothematic writing) rather than being a new theme.

Q3. Analyse how Haydn uses sonata form and the orchestra in the first movement, with reference to a passage. [20 marks]

• What the marker wants. A located analysis of the exposition, development and recapitulation, the keys and modulations, and Haydn's orchestration (tutti versus chamber scoring, woodwind colour, brass and timpani at structural points), using correct terms.