Birth of the Symphony

The opera overture leaves the stage, and the symphony becomes an independent public genre.

Time and place

Milan, Mannheim, Vienna and Eszterháza, from the 1730s to the 1760s. The symphony was not invented by one composer; it grew out of the Italian opera overture and the trio sonata.

What happened

The overture before an opera was once merely a warm-up, its fast-slow-fast shape gradually detached and played on its own. Sammartini in Milan and Stamitz at Mannheim divided the orchestra into strings, winds and brass, using crescendo and disciplined bowing to make a new mass of sound. Haydn wrote his first symphonies for Count Morzin and the Esterházy court, and the four-movement pattern with a minuet slowly settled.

What changed

The orchestra stopped being a singer's backdrop and became the subject of the work. Composers could write pure instrumental music without words, stage or liturgy, and concerts and publishers had a repertory to sell. The symphony became the yardstick for orchestral writing, a line that Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler would extend.

Listen to the turn

Begin with Haydn's early Symphony No. 2, small in forces and still courtly in tone. Then Mozart's Symphony No. 29, whose finale binds the four movements with counterpoint. End with Haydn's Symphony No. 100, written for a ticketed London concert, drums and triangle pushing the sound to the back of the hall.

This turn belongs to Classical; see Symphony and Sonata Form.

Listen in the library

Symphony No.2 in C major Hob.I:2C10:48海顿最早一批交响曲之一，三乐章、小编制，仍带宫廷娱乐的痕迹DetailsSymphony No.29 in A major K.201/186aC120:14莫扎特十八岁写的四乐章交响曲，末乐章用密集对位推进，体裁已能承载复杂结构DetailsSymphony No.100 in G major Hob.I:100C11:40海顿为伦敦公共音乐会写的后期交响曲，乐队规模与听众都换了天地Details

All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).

Sources

Taruskin, Music in the Eighteenth Century（Oxford, 2005），用于核对交响曲早期形态与曼海姆乐队，本文为原创表述
Grove Music Online 的 Symphony 与 Stamitz 条目，用于交叉核对年代与体裁细节

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.

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