Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 45 “Farewell” – Analysis

Two violinists continue playing as other musicians leave, evoking Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 “Farewell”.
As the players leave, the symphony continues towards its final cadence. In the slow conclusion of the “Farewell”, Haydn makes the orchestra’s gradual disappearance part of the music itself, until two violins alone sustain the remaining phrase. An artistic evocation of the successive departures.

Composed in 1772 for the Esterházy court, Haydn’s Symphony No. 45, the “Farewell”, ends with an extraordinary change of personnel. During the concluding Adagio, the players finish their parts and leave one after another until only two violinists remain. Yet the departures are more than a theatrical ending. They complete a musical journey from the tense F-sharp minor of the opening to a quiet resolution in F-sharp major, giving the symphony a conclusion unlike the one its vigorous first movement seems to promise.

Haydn was then serving Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy, with responsibilities extending from composition to the practical management of the musicians. At Eszterháza, the family’s palace in present-day Hungary, he worked with an orchestra whose individual abilities and everyday circumstances he knew. The familiar account of the symphony brings together two aspects of that position: Haydn as the composer of an ambitious instrumental work, and Haydn as the person to whom his colleagues could turn when they needed their employer to listen.

The choice of F-sharp minor gives the symphony an uncommon tonal identity within the eighteenth-century repertory. Its opening generates considerable force from a relatively small orchestra: descending violin figures, syncopated accompaniment and persistent motion in the lower strings establish several layers of activity at once. A major and F-sharp major subsequently enter the work’s tonal design, though neither key guarantees an untroubled atmosphere. Dynamics, phrase structure and delayed harmonic resolutions continue to qualify the apparent reassurance of the major mode.

The nickname makes it tempting to listen only for the departures. Across the earlier movements, however, Haydn repeatedly unsettles the expected course of a phrase, interrupts its momentum or delays its resolution. In the finale, these musical changes become visible as well as audible. The harmony continues to develop while the number of performers diminishes, and the final tonal resolution arrives with only the smallest ensemble left on stage.

Movements / Structure

The usual four-movement listing conceals an important distinction within the finale. Its Presto and concluding Adagio are continuous but substantially different musical movements. Separating them in the outline makes the scale of the finale clearer and shows how the symphony travels from its opening minor key towards a major-key conclusion.

MovementMarking and metreKeyForm and function
IAllegro assai · 3/4F-sharp minorSonata form, driven by persistent opening material; an unexpected lyrical passage in D major appears within the development.
IIAdagio · 3/8A majorAn extended sonata-form movement, with muted violins, interrupted phrases and a restrained, often hesitant manner.
IIIMenuetto: Allegretto – Trio · 3/4F-sharp majorMinuet and trio with the minuet’s return; sharp dynamic contrasts and a distinctive role for the horns.
IVaFinale: Presto · alla breveF-sharp minorA rapid sonata-form movement whose final resolution is withheld before the change of tempo.
IVbAdagio · 3/8A major → F-sharp majorThe substantial slow continuation of the double finale, combining tonal redirection with the performers’ successive departures.

A major links the second movement with the opening of the farewell Adagio. F-sharp major, already heard in the minuet, becomes the eventual destination. These relationships encourage the listener to hear a connected tonal journey across the work. The concluding Adagio has sufficient formal independence to support discussion of a fifth actual movement, while the conventional four-part listing remains a useful practical guide.

Musical Analysis

I. Allegro assai — momentum from a persistent figure

The Allegro assai opens at forte, with almost the full orchestra. The first violins sweep downwards through notes of the prevailing harmony. Against them, the second violins introduce syncopated accents, while violas and lower strings maintain continuous quavers. The pulse is clear, but the layers emphasise different points in the bar. Much of the movement’s urgency comes from that rhythmic friction.

The first violins’ descending motif is built from arpeggios: the notes of a chord presented in sequence rather than together. Its contour and rhythm establish a clear identity without the need for a long, smoothly unfolding tune. Repeated in changing harmonic positions, the figure becomes a source of movement throughout the opening section. Oboes and horns sustain longer notes above the busy strings, giving weight to the harmonic framework while the lower instruments keep it in motion.

Haydn: score example 1
Example 1 — I. Allegro assai, bars 1–5. The descending first-violin figure is set against syncopated second violins and continuous quavers below. All staves printed in this system of the source edition are reproduced. Source: Joseph Haydn, edited by Ernst Praetorius, Ernst Eulenburg, no. 86, c. 1936, plate E.E. 3660, p. 1; digital copy, IMSLP #22608.

The exposition preserves the opening’s momentum even as it moves from F-sharp minor towards C-sharp minor. Repeated figures, brief rapid passages and changes of dynamics provide variety, but there is no expansive lyrical theme to balance the force of the opening. The tonal area changes while the music continues to move with much the same insistence.

The development relocates and recombines the material already heard. After concentrated activity and a conspicuous interruption, a gentler string idea appears in D major at bar 110. The change is immediately perceptible without identifying its key. The previously insistent accompaniment falls away, the bass is initially silent, and the melody is allowed space between its gestures. The music seems to proceed under different conditions, with less pressure on each phrase to continue the preceding momentum.

In the following bars, short slurred phrases, rests and occasional replies from the other strings allow the first-violin melody to stand out. The oboes enter at bar 117, adding another response before the texture changes again. What makes the passage formally unusual is the appearance of this lyrical idea within the development. It has some of the character of a contrasting second theme, but it is not the conventional second theme of the exposition.

Haydn: score example 2
Example 2 — I. Allegro assai, bars 112–118, continuing the episode begun at bar 110. The first-violin melody is supported by widely spaced responses; the oboes enter in bar 117. The image contains the oboe staff and the string staves printed in the source; the silent horns are omitted in that system. Source: Haydn, edited by Ernst Praetorius, Ernst Eulenburg, no. 86, c. 1936, plate E.E. 3660, p. 10; IMSLP #22608. Bar numbering was cross-checked against Timothy Lanfear’s transcription from the H. C. Robbins Landon edition.

The return to F-sharp minor is announced by the familiar arpeggios and the restoration of the denser accompaniment. The recapitulation continues to work with the material’s tension rather than simply replaying the beginning. After the D-major episode, the descending figures carry a changed expressive weight: the listener has heard an alternative to their insistence and now experiences its withdrawal. The movement retains its minor-key identity to the close, leaving the following Adagio to establish the first sustained change of orchestral scale and colour.

II. Adagio — a quiet conversation with uncertain pauses

The second movement immediately reduces the scale and brightness of the sound. In A major, the violins play with mutes and mostly at a soft dynamic. Oboes and horns remain silent for long stretches, leaving the strings to establish the Adagio’s restrained character. Because the violin tone is less brilliant, small shifts of rhythm and harmony become especially noticeable.

The principal idea consists of small melodic movements interrupted by rests. Some notes are tied across the bar line; others carry accents that stand out against the restrained dynamic. Within the compact 3/8 metre, those silences occupy a significant portion of the musical space. The phrases can suggest a conversation in which continuation is considered rather than assumed. A note may lean into the next bar, yet the following response can arrive with an unexpected hesitation.

Violas and lower strings contribute brief replies and intermittent support beneath the violins. Later, more continuous motion passes between the voices. That change helps articulate the Adagio’s sonata form. The exposition moves from A towards E major, and its new tonal region acquires greater mobility without abandoning the muted string colour. The contrast between an interrupted manner of speaking and a more fluent succession of notes becomes one of the movement’s principal organising resources.

In the development, familiar small figures are placed in less settled harmonic surroundings. Chromatic alterations, sequential shifts and short interruptions make a lasting point of repose difficult to establish. Because the dynamic frequently remains soft, the effect requires more attentive listening than the first movement’s outbursts. A phrase returns at a different pitch, an accompanying voice moves chromatically, or a cadence is held back. The tension is carried by these changes in continuation, without a corresponding need for loudness.

The limited appearances of the wind instruments gain significance through that economy. A held oboe note or a short wind phrase becomes conspicuous after an extended passage for strings alone; the horns add discreet harmonic support. Listening for those entries reveals how a small addition can alter the depth of a phrase. Haydn can change its perspective through instrumentation while retaining the same limited collection of musical ideas.

The return of A major and the reappearance of recognisable figures restore a clearer sense of direction. The rests, accents and carefully articulated breathing of the melody nevertheless remain part of the music’s character. The close preserves the atmosphere developed across the movement: repose shaped by small internal disturbances, with the quietest phrases still capable of carrying harmonic and rhythmic tension.

III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio — major-key colour and abrupt changes of weight

The minuet moves into F-sharp major, retaining the tonic note of the first movement while changing from minor to major. Its clear 3/4 dance pulse offers a firmer framework after the interrupted phrasing of the Adagio. But the dance does not proceed with uninterrupted ease: sudden shifts of dynamics and orchestral weight keep the phrasing unsettled.

The violins begin softly and with relatively little support. The rest of the ensemble enters at forte, abruptly enlarging the phrase; subsequent returns to piano or pianissimo remove much of that reinforcement again. These are changes of texture as well as volume. The distribution of the melodic line and the density of the accompaniment alter with them, so the listener encounters a dance articulated through successive gatherings and withdrawals of orchestral weight.

Harmonic friction and movement in the inner parts continue to qualify the major-mode setting. Chromatic notes and dissonances requiring resolution interrupt an impression of effortless ease. The violin line sometimes advances, sometimes folds back, and the bass does not support every phrase in the same way. An effective listening focus is the changing presence of the lower instruments: their full participation gives a passage weight, while their absence leaves the upper strings more exposed.

At the opening of the Trio, the two horns assume a prominent role of their own. Their simple movement in harmony offers a readily identifiable change of colour. The strings answer and carry the music forward; later, oboe participation adds another layer to the reduced ensemble. The contrast is especially meaningful after the opening movement, where the horns chiefly strengthened the harmonic framework. Here their sound becomes the starting point of a distinct section and part of its expressive identity.

When the minuet returns, its dynamic contrasts and less settled phrasing return with it. F-sharp major has established a memory that will matter at the end of the symphony. Before that ending can be reached, the Presto restores F-sharp minor and renews the momentum of a fast symphonic movement, reopening the tonal question that the final Adagio will eventually settle.

IV. Finale: Presto – Adagio — the changing ensemble of the farewell

The Presto begins with animated string writing and short phrases that quickly generate further motion. Its alla breve metre gives the pulse two broad beats to the bar, a different organisation of speed from the opening movement’s 3/4. Persistent quavers, exchanges between string groups and interventions from the winds sustain the activity expected of a rapid finale. The symphony initially appears ready to reach its conclusion through renewed orchestral energy.

Sonata form allows the material to be introduced, carried away from its starting key and brought back. The exposition moves towards C-sharp minor, while the development exploits the mobility of its short figures. The recapitulation restores F-sharp minor and encourages the expectation of a decisive final cadence. Haydn needs that expectation to be credible: the following change is effective because the music has established a recognisable route towards a conventional ending.

Towards the end of the Presto, the music is brought to a halt. Its dominant harmony—the chord that creates an expectation of return to the tonic—remains unresolved, and a rest with a fermata prolongs the suspense. Rather than supplying the expected fast cadence, Haydn begins an Adagio in A major and 3/8. Tempo, metre and tonal direction change together. The result is an extended slow section with its own material and musical development.

The Adagio initially retains the ensemble, combining delicate violin motion with interruptions and short wind responses. It does not begin as a uniform fade. Dynamic changes and brief collective interventions give successive phrases different degrees of emphasis. The departures enter this continuing musical process gradually: each instrument’s last contribution changes the ensemble available for everything that follows.

The second oboe and first horn are the first to finish. Later the bassoon, first oboe and second horn make their final contributions. Each departure removes a recognisable colour from the music. The other players continue, and the orchestration is repeatedly remade: every succeeding passage has fewer instrumental voices available than the one before it.

The double bass’s departure is particularly significant to the ear, removing the deepest foundation. When the music reaches its later F-sharp-major region, the balance has already shifted upwards. The cello subsequently finishes, followed by the violinists who will not remain to the end, and finally the viola, the last accompanying voice. The division of the violin writing into additional lines within the Adagio enables the reduction to take place in stages before the concluding pair is isolated.

At the close, two muted violins remain. At times one holds a note while the other carries the melodic line forward. Together, they sustain the harmonic direction even without the bass instruments. The dynamic falls from piano to pianissimo, and the symphony ends without the collective emphasis normally expected from a fast orchestral finale.

F-sharp major eventually supplies the tonal resolution withheld at the end of the Presto. It arrives within a progressively smaller musical community. Hearing those developments together—firmer harmonic direction and fewer remaining performers—reveals the conclusion’s substance beyond its visible theatrical action. An audio recording still carries the loss of successive colours and of the bass foundation. The act of departure is built into what the listener hears.

The Double Finale and the Work’s Tonal Journey

The description “fast finale with a slow coda” does not fully convey what Haydn has written. The Presto is a developed sonata-form movement, while the ensuing Adagio presents its own material, shapes contrasts and reaches a new key. To describe the relationship between these two substantial, successive movements, musicologist James Webster uses the term “double finale”. This analytical distinction does not displace the customary four-movement listing.

The distinction has practical consequences for listening. A short closing extension would chiefly confirm something already accomplished. Here the decisive return to F-sharp, now as a major key, takes place within the slow continuation. Its move from A major to F-sharp major connects the symphony’s two principal major-key regions and answers the unresolved pressure of its original minor tonic. Modulation therefore performs a structural task: the change of tonal centre alters how the work as a whole can end.

This does not require each earlier theme to represent a particular episode in the musicians’ desire to go home. Such an account would need evidence beyond the familiar story. The score provides a firmer basis for following tonal relationships, changes of texture and postponed closure. The narrative of the departures can enrich those experiences without assigning a separate external event to every musical detail.

Sturm und Drang: Hearing the Term in the Score

Sturm und Drang is frequently used for a group of Haydn’s intensely expressive works from the late 1760s and early 1770s. In Symphony No. 45, minor tonality, syncopation, persistent repetition and abrupt dynamic contrasts give the description concrete musical content. The term identifies a field of expressive choices; it does not establish that Haydn was following a declared literary programme.

The intensity is achieved with relatively modest forces. The oboes and horns reinforce or alter the harmonic surface, while the string parts combine descending shapes, syncopated attacks and continuous movement. Elsewhere, mutes, rests and the removal of instruments reshape expression without requiring a large supply of new themes. The symphony’s variety depends to a remarkable degree on the management of a small ensemble, with each layer of its sound assigned a clear function.

🪶 A Chapter in the Life of the Work

A Departure That Reached Paris

Eszterháza, the Esterházy family’s palace in what is now Hungary, was one of the residences where Prince Nikolaus I spent extended periods with his court. The orchestra accompanied him, and Joseph Haydn, as Kapellmeister, was responsible for the music and its performers. For some of the married players, service at the palace also meant separation from their families: their wives had remained in Eisenstadt, the court’s other principal residence.

According to a story Haydn told later in life, the prince once decided to prolong a stay at Eszterháza by several more weeks. Musicians who had been expecting to see their wives again faced a further delay. They turned to Haydn and asked him to intervene. The story was preserved by Georg August Griesinger, one of Haydn’s earliest biographers, and is associated with the symphony composed in 1772. The account, however, gives no securely established date for the performance at which the incident occurred.

Haydn chose to convey the request through music. He wrote an ending in which the orchestra gradually emptied while the performance was still in progress. As each player finished his contribution, he extinguished his light, gathered his music and left. These are the actions Griesinger describes. In front of the prince, the ensemble grew smaller and smaller, but the slow finale continued: those who remained played on until the music was entrusted to two violins.

In the same account, Nikolaus understood the message. The next day he ordered the court’s departure from Eszterháza. Thus ends the story Haydn is said to have related to his biographer: an ordinary difficulty in the musicians’ working lives reached their employer through the symphony they performed. Our knowledge of this episode rests chiefly on that later recollection, not on a surviving contemporary report of the performance.

The unusual finale soon found an audience beyond the palace. On 13 April 1784, Symphony No. 45 was presented at the Concert spirituel, one of the important institutions of public concert life in Paris. On 24 April, the Mercure de France reported the musicians’ successive departures. The account is preserved in the periodical as quoted by musicologist Jérôme Lejeune in his study of Haydn’s Parisian reception. Its focus is the finale, and it does not establish whether all the preceding movements were also performed.

The Paris report also carried a different story about the departures. In that version, the prince had been considering reducing the number of musicians in his service. Haydn was said to have shown him what his orchestra would sound like as one player after another disappeared, thereby persuading him to keep them. The action remained the same, but its purpose changed. In Paris it was explained as a plea to preserve the musicians’ jobs; in Haydn’s account it was a request to return to their families.

The distinction between these versions became explicit in 1810, when Griesinger published his biographical notes on Haydn. He stated that the story of the prolonged stay had come from the composer himself and rejected the suggestion that the symphony had prevented dismissals. Griesinger wrote many years after the episode, so his testimony records Haydn’s account rather than independently confirming every detail of the original performance. The Paris report, meanwhile, shows how a different explanation had attached itself to the same ending.

That journey—from a courtly request to a public performance in Paris—helps explain why the “Farewell” outlived its immediate circumstances. The departures can be enacted before listeners who know nothing of the original occasion. And the musical effect remains clear without an accompanying story: as performers leave, those still present continue the score until its last phrase belongs to just two violins.

🎧 Listening Guide

Separate the opening strings into three functions. First follow the broad descending shapes in the first violins. Then listen beneath them for the second violins’ syncopations and the continuous quavers in the lower accompaniment. The interaction of these layers generates agitation even while the winds sustain the harmonic framework.

Recognise the first movement’s lyrical interruption. After the concentrated developmental activity and its pause, a much more sparsely accompanied string conversation begins. The missing bass foundation and the spaces between gestures distinguish the new idea. On another hearing, notice how the returning arpeggios change the expressive significance of this passage.

In the first Adagio, attend to the intervals between events. Mutes soften the violins’ brilliance, while rests and tied notes shift the weight within their phrases. Wait for the infrequent wind entries. Their colour registers strongly because the strings have occupied the foreground for so long.

Compare the minuet’s quiet opening with its collective entries. The move from piano to forte changes orchestral density along with volume. At the beginning of the trio, follow the two horns and the strings’ reply; the initiative passes to a different part of the same small ensemble.

Hear two distinct changes in the finale. First comes the interruption of the Presto and the beginning of the slow Adagio. Then, within that Adagio, the orchestral voices disappear successively as the music moves towards F-sharp major. The double bass’s departure is a useful landmark for feeling the loss of the low foundation. With the last two violins, follow the changing balance of melody and accompaniment through to the very soft final dynamic.

🎶 Further Listening

These performances offer different ensembles and presentation formats for comparison. The opening balance of the strings and the changing scale of the last Adagio are particularly productive points of reference.

  • Guy van Waas — Les Agrémens, Haydn à Paris, Ricercar RIC 277, recorded in 2008. A period-instrument approach invites attention to contrasting wind colours and their balance within the ensemble. The final Adagio is assigned a separate track, making it convenient to examine as a substantial slow movement in its own right.
  • Barry Wordsworth — Capella Istropolitana, Naxos 8.550382, recorded in 1989. This documented modern-instrument chamber-orchestra account provides a useful comparison in articulation and overall timing. The ensemble’s scale allows the function of individual orchestral lines to remain a central listening question.
  • Conrad van Alphen — Sinfonia Rotterdam, a complete live performance on the orchestra’s official YouTube channel. The video format makes this the most directly relevant choice here for examining the relationship between performance and departure. Its visible sequence can be compared with what remains perceptible through sound alone.

📚 Further Reading

Further study benefits from keeping three questions in view: what the score contains, how the circumstances are documented, and how the separate movements contribute to a larger design.

  • James Webster — Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in his Instrumental Music. Cambridge University Press, 1991. The dedicated monograph examines the symphony and its wider implications for understanding instrumental form. Its first four chapters—“The construction of the whole”, “Instability”, “Resolution” and “The program”—offer a focused route through the subject.
  • Georg August Griesinger — Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1810, pp. 28–29. A brief but essential primary testimony for the familiar account and the explicit rejection of the dismissal story. The digitised original makes it possible to check what the early biographer actually records.
  • Carl-Gabriel Stellan Mörner, editor — Joseph Haydn Werke, series I, volume 6: Sinfonien 1767–1772. G. Henle Verlag, HN 5052, with the separate critical report HN 5053. A recommended critical edition for sustained score study and comparison with older publications. The publisher’s catalogue confirms the inclusion of Symphony No. 45 in this volume.

🔗 Related Works

These works explore several questions raised by the “Farewell”: expressive pressure in the minor mode, the listener’s expectation of an ending, and the relationship between symphonic form and meanings beyond the notes.

  • Joseph Haydn — Symphony No. 46 in B major, Hob. I:46. Also composed in 1772, it offers a particularly close comparison in cyclic organisation: the return of minuet material within the finale alters the expected sequence of movements.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183. Syncopation, forceful string writing and minor tonality provide concrete expressive features to compare, without requiring an assumption of direct influence.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven — Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 “Pastoral”. The continuity of its last three movements and its declared extramusical framework offer a later perspective on the shaping of an entire symphonic journey.
  • Johannes Brahms — Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90. Its quiet conclusion makes a rewarding expressive comparison with Haydn. The connection concerns how a symphony lowers its voice at the end, without implying a documented borrowing.

🎼 Closing Reflection

As the players leave, the last phrase passes into fewer and fewer hands. Two violins no longer need the weight of the orchestra to bring the music to its close. After the final note, the silence carries the memory of a whole ensemble gradually withdrawing, one performer at a time.

📖 Bibliography and Sources

The analysis draws on direct examination of the orchestral score, with bar numbering checked against a later transcription from the Landon edition. Griesinger’s account was consulted in the digitised original; the Parisian reception is documented through Jérôme Lejeune’s essay. Publicly available chapter previews from Webster’s monograph informed the discussion of his formal interpretation, distinguished throughout from observations made directly in the score.

Scores

Haydn, Joseph. Symphonie (“Abschied”), Fis moll, Hob. I:45. Edited by Ernst Praetorius. Leipzig: Ernst Eulenburg, no. 86, c. 1936, plate E.E. 3660. The historical title-page numbering is no. 18. Digital copy: IMSLP #22608.

Lanfear, Timothy, transcriber. Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony Nº 45, F♯ minor, Farewell. 28 June 2020. Transcribed from the Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Symphonien, edited by H. C. Robbins Landon and others. IMSLP #633504. Used for cross-checking; the article’s score images reproduce the Praetorius edition.

Primary Testimony

Griesinger, Georg August. Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1810, pp. 28–29. Digitised Bayerische Staatsbibliothek copy via the Internet Archive.

Musicological Study and Recording Essays

Webster, James. Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in his Instrumental Music. Cambridge University Press, 1991. Publicly available previews of chapters 1–4, pp. 13–120. Cambridge Core.

Lejeune, Jérôme. “Haydn à Paris” / “Haydn in Paris”. Essay accompanying Haydn à Paris, Les Agrémens — Guy van Waas, Ricercar RIC 277, 2008, especially the French account on pp. 6–7 and its English counterpart. Reproduces the Mercure de France, 24 April 1784, concerning the concert of 13 April. Digital booklet.

Anderson, Keith. Notes accompanying Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 45, 48 and 102, Capella Istropolitana — Barry Wordsworth, Naxos 8.550382, recorded in 1989. Digital booklet.

Catalogues and Audiovisual Documentation

G. Henle Verlag. Catalogue entry for Joseph Haydn Werke, series I, volume 6, Symphonies 1767–1772, edited by Carl-Gabriel Stellan Mörner, HN 5052, and the accompanying critical report HN 5053. Publisher’s catalogue.

Sinfonia Rotterdam. Haydn Symphony no. 45 Farewell Symphony — Sinfonia Rotterdam / Conrad van Alphen. Official YouTube upload.