Haydn composed his Symphony #98 early in 1792, and it was premiered on 2 March. It is an inward-looking work, at least in its first two movements.
Haydn wrote in his notebook that ‘The new Symphony in B flat was given, and its first and last Allegros encored’.
It was the British musicologist and composer Donald Tovey who first suggested that the Adagio was Haydn’s requiem for his friend Mozart, who had died the previous December. Certainly the echoes of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s Andante are hard to miss in this sad movement.
Haydn the humorist returns in the wonderful finale. The second theme belongs to the world of Rossini’s Figaro (the Italian was a great admirer of Haydn’s symphonies); and the comedy continues in the development, with its violin solos in wildly contrasting keys, and the huge coda.
Here is the final movement of this wonderful work:
