SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 

Program notes by Eric Bromberger 

February 3, 9, and 11, 2007 

HAYDN  Symphony No. 85 in B-flat Major  “La reine” 

         Adagio; Vivace 

         Romanze: Allegretto 

      Menuetto: Allegretto 

      Finale: Presto 

WILLIAMS  Five Sacred Trees 

      Eo

      Tortan 

      Eo

      Craeb Uisnig 

      Dathi 

 INTERMISSION 

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Opus 70 

      Allegro 

      Moderato 

      Presto 

      Largo 

      Allegretto 

Symphony No. 85 in B-flat Major  “La reine” 

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN 

Born March 31, 1732, Rohrau 

Died May 31, 1809, Vienna 

 Haydn served as kapellmeister to the Esterhazy court for three decades (1761-1790), a 

period spent in what he himself described as “isolation”–the Esterhazys maintained palaces in 

small villages on the edge of the Hungarian plain.  In Eisenstadt and Eszterhaza Haydn had an

excellent orchestra and a discriminating royal audience, but as the years went by he became 

interested in wider fame, and in 1779 Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy granted Haydn the freedom to 

accept commissions from other sources.  One of the first of these came from Paris, where the 

Loge Olympique, a Masonic order, sponsored a series of public concerts in the Tuileries.  The 

young Comte d’Ogny, one of the leaders of the lodge, had long been an admirer of Haydn’s 

music, and in 1784 he commissioned six symphonies from the composer, who had just turned 52.  

These symphonies (Nos. 82-87) have inevitably become known as the Paris Symphonies. 

 This commission brought Haydn not just new fame, but also significant income (he was 

paid the handsome sum of 25 louis d’or per symphony) and expanded artistic opportunities. The 

orchestra of the Loge Olympique was huge–it might have as many as 70 players, including 40 

violins (at most, Haydn’s Esterhazy orchestra had a total of about 25 players)–and the Parisian 

orchestras were famed for the brilliance of their playing.   Haydn was aware of the Parisian sense 

of spectacle–the orchestra of the Loge Olympique wore sky-blue coats, lace, and swords while 

they played–and he also knew that he would be writing for a large audience rather than for a 

small, refined court.  All these factors led him to write grand symphonies, full of energy and 

appealing melodies, and it is no surprise that Haydn’s Paris Symphonies remain–more than two 

centuries after their composition–among his most popular. 

 Three of the Paris Symphonies have nicknames–No. 82 (The Bear), No. 83 (The Hen), 

and No. 85 (The Queen)–though none of these nicknames originated with Haydn.  The first two 

nicknames arose from things in the music itself: audiences made out growling sounds in the 

finale of The Bear and clucking noises in the first movement of The Hen.  The nickname La 

reine for No. 85 did not come from Haydn–this symphony was reportedly the favorite of Queen 

Marie Antoinette, who attended the concerts in the Tuileries.  When it was published by Imbault 

in 1788, its title page bore the subtitle “La Reine de France,” and the nickname La reine has been 

a part of this music ever since.  Marie Antoinette heard this symphony in 1787, near the end of 

her increasingly troubled reign–two years later she would lose her throne and her freedom (and 

eventually her head). 

 But Haydn had no thought of Marie Antoinette when he wrote this music–to him it was 

simply the Symphony in B-flat Major.  Scored for what might seem relatively modest forces 

(flute, pairs of oboes, bassoons, and horns, plus strings), this is nevertheless powerful music that 

rings out with a grand sonority well suited to the large forces in Paris.  It is also a fast symphony: 

two briskly-paced outer movements (marked Vivace and Presto) frame two inner movements 

both marked Allegretto–this symphony has no true slow movement. 

 The Symphony No. 85 gets off to an imposing start with a grand introduction, full of runs 

and dotted rhythms.  It is also loud (the dynamic is fortissimo), which makes the beginning of the 

Vivace all the more effective, for the music turns fast and soft at the same instant.  This is one of 

those nicely-integrated movements in which Haydn spins all of his material out of this same 

Vivace tune; in the process he recalls the runs from the introduction. Along the way this theme 

makes a striking plunge into F minor, and the music suddenly turns fierce–this passage is 

curiously reminiscent of Haydn’s own “Farewell” Symphony, composed fifteen years earlier.  

The storm passes quickly, however, and the movement powers to an exhilarating close. 

 Haydn makes a nod to his French hosts (sponsors, performers, and audience) in the 

second movement, which is a set of variations on the French song La gentile et jeune Lisette.  

Haydn titles this movement Romanze, underlining the intimate character of the little tune, and 

then offers four sprightly variations in which the tune always remains clear.  The Menuetto has a 

sonorous sweep, nicely setting off the poised trio section. 

 The Finale leaps to life with an infectious eight-measure phrase that instantly has us 

tapping our feet, comfortable in the knowledge that this will be a rondo.  But Haydn is Haydn, 

and there are surprises along the way.  Suddenly this little tune grows complex and begins to 

develop (as a result, some call this finale a sonata-rondo), and then–just as suddenly–Haydn 

makes a polished return to the rondo and rounds matters off with a ringing cadence. 

 This music just plain sounds good.  One wonders what that first performance–given 

before Marie Antoinette by an orchestra dressed in sky-blue coats–must have sounded like. 

Five Sacred Trees 

JOHN WILLIAMS 

Born February 8, 1932, Long Island, NY 

 In 1992 the New York Philharmonic marked its 150th anniversary, and to help celebrate 

that occasion the orchestra commissioned a series of concertos for its principal players.  Those 

players were allowed to choose their own composer, and principal bassoonist Judith LeClair 

(who was principal bassoonist of the San Diego Symphony from 1979 to 1981) chose John 

Williams.  Williams may well be the best-known composer on the planet.  He wrote the scores 

for Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, the Indiana Jones films, and 

Schindler’s List, he has won five Oscars and sixteen Grammies, and he served as conductor of 

the Boston Pops from 1930 until 1993.  But Williams also composes “serious” music (which 

somehow implies that film music is not serious): he has written concertos for violin, cello, 

trumpet, flute, clarinet, and tuba, among other works. 

 Williams was attracted to the idea of writing for the bassoon, and perhaps it was the 

physical instrument itself–made of wood (maple) and shaped somewhat like a tree-trunk–that 

turned his imagination toward writing music inspired by trees.  He drew inspiration from the 

mythological studies by the English poet-novelist Robert Graves (best known to American 

audiences as the author of I, Claudius), specifically from accounts of the importance of trees in 

Celtic myth.  All five of the movement titles of Five Sacred Trees are in Celtic, and each depicts 

a tree with specific meaning in that mythology.  Williams’ music here takes on a misty, other- 

worldly quality, as if we are being transported back several thousand years to a time of pagan 

ritual, nature-worship, and an instinctive communion with the natural world.  Williams 

completed Five Sacred Trees in 1993, and Judith LeClair gave the premiere on April 13, 1995, 

with Kurt Masur conducting the New York Philharmonic. 

 Five Sacred Trees is anchored firmly on its outer movements, which are the longest in the 

piece.  The opening Eo

strength and timelessness of that tree.  The music opens with solo bassoon all alone; gradually 

the orchestra enters and grows more animated before the movement fades away on the sound of 

the lonely bassoon.  Tortan functions as the scherzo of this music.  That title refers to a tree 

traditionally associated with sorcery and witchcraft.  Much of this movement is a duo featuring 

solo bassoon and solo violin, though the orchestra eventually turns this into a frenzied dance that 

ends with a quick reference to another musical tale of witchcraft, Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s 

Apprentice.  Eo

Briefest and most dramatic of the five movements, Craeb Uisnig depicts the ash, a tree 

associated with strife.  This leads directly into the concluding Dathi, a tree that was believed to 

be the muse of poets and was  traditionally the last tree in the forest to fall.  A long orchestral 

introduction leads to the entrance of the solo bassoon and the solemn rumination that brings Five 

Sacred Trees to its quiet close. 

Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Opus 70 

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 

Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg 

Died August 9, 1975, Moscow 

 Since the time of Beethoven, writing a Ninth Symphony has proven a daunting prospect 

for composers.  Not only is Beethoven’s Ninth an unmatchable work, but there seems to be 

something fatal about Ninth Symphonies: Beethoven, Schubert, Dvora

Sessions wrote only nine, and Bruckner died while writing his Ninth.  Mahler in particular was 

superstitious about writing a Ninth Symphony and regarded it as a potentially deadly act.  After 

completing his Eighth, Mahler composed Das Lied von der Erde, and once that was done and he 

had begun his Ninth, he claimed that Das Lied was a vocal symphony and so he had beaten the 

curse and was writing what would actually be his Tenth.  Mahler had reason to be concerned: his 

Ninth turned out to be his final completed work, and he died before hearing a note of it. 

 Given this heritage, it is not surprising that composers have been wary of writing a Ninth 

Symphony.  The circumstances under which Shostakovich wrote his seemed in particular to call 

for a grand Ninth Symphony in the Beethovenian mold, for he wrote it in the summer of 1945, 

only months after the defeat of Nazi Germany.  His two wartime symphonies–the Seventh and 

Eighth–had been huge, heroic works, and it was widely expected that Shostakovich would 

complete the trilogy with a Victory Symphony.  But, as so often happened, what the Soviet 

government expected from Shostakovich and what it got were two different things.  When first 

performed in Leningrad on November 3, 1945, Shostakovich’s Ninth came as a surprise, for the 

music seemed defiantly anti-heroic: instead of celebrating the Russian victory, Shostakovich 

returned to the nose-thumbing playfulness that had marked the music of his youth. 

 During the six weeks it took Shostakovich to write the Ninth Symphony, he and composer 

Dmitri Kabalevsky had relaxed each evening by playing piano versions of Haydn’s symphonies.  

Some of the spirit of those symphonies–with their classical poise, energy, and humor–makes 

itself felt in the Ninth Symphony.  Shostakovich himself said of the Ninth: “It is a merry little 

piece.  Musicians will love to play it, and critics will delight in blasting it.” 

 He did not know how right he was.  The official reaction was at first confused, then 

angry.  Soviet critic Israel Nestyev described the Ninth as “a playful and fanciful trifle” and then 

denounced it for its “cynical and evil grotesquerie, a tone of merciless joking and ridicule, a cold 

irony of stylization.”  Three years later, at the infamous General Assembly of Soviet Composers 

in February 1948, Stalin’s cultural czar Andrei Zhdanov ripped into Shostakovich’s Ninth for its 

“expressionistic tenseness, neuroticism, escape into a region of abnormal, repulsive, and 

pathological phenomena.” 

 Today it is hard to understand how anyone could have said such things about this music.  

Perhaps the Russian government resented Shostakovich’s failure to produce a Victory 

Symphony, perhaps the tensions of the Cold War had something to do with it, perhaps the 

humorlessness of Soviet officialdom did too.  In any case, over the last sixty years 

Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony has proven a consistent crowd-pleaser and has become one of 

his most frequently performed symphonies. 

 Though it is clearly a symphony in form, the Ninth actually feels more like a 

divertimento: a multi-movement work, light in character, and written to entertain and please.  

The score calls for a large orchestra, but Shostakovich keeps textures lean and clear–his 

orchestration emphasizes woodwinds, with a particularly prominent part for solo bassoon.  The 

opening Allegro is in traditional sonata form, complete with the exposition repeat of the classical 

symphony (this is the only one of Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies to call for an exposition 

repeat).  Strings state the first theme immediately, while the playful second belongs to solo 

piccolo, accompanied by trombone and percussion; the movement concludes on a brassy 

restatement of the opening violin idea.  Longest and most serious of the five movements, the 

Moderato has something of the character of a slow waltz, and its lonely, icy atmosphere results 

in part from its many wistful woodwind solos and the writing for dark, muted strings. 

 The final three movements are connected.  The brief Presto features a dancing clarinet 

and an acerbic solo trumpet whose crisp calls cut through the music’s busy textures.  Its energy 

exhausted, this movement flows into the Largo, which functions as a bridge between the two fast 

movements.  Here mock-heroic brass fanfares alternate with a mournful bassoon recitative until a 

saucy solo for that same instrument leads the way into the rondo-finale.  This movement is full of 

fizzing energy: Shostakovich punctuates its climax with a swaggering circus-band march, and 

then a blistering coda sends the Ninth Symphony scurrying to its madcap conclusion.