Caught Off Guard by Haydn's Symphony No 94 in G major, Hob. I:94 "Surprise"
The Best Moments
Symphony No. 94 in G major, Hob. I:94
I'm Joseph Haydn, and I'm glad to share with you the best moments of my Symphony No 94 in G major, Hob. I:94 "Surprise". You'll hear how I wrote it for London in 1791 and how a quiet, gentle tune in the Andante was made to catch an audience off guard. My fellow composers and I also teach you, here on this site, to recognize our pieces the moment you hear them, so come and try the Trainer for yourself.
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A Slow Start With Something Up Its Sleeve
I open the symphony with a slow, singing introduction in three beats to the bar, the kind of music that lets you settle into your chair and stop checking your watch. Then the main section bounces in at a much brisker pace, with a tune that seems to start in A minor, as if it has taken a wrong turn, before it finds its way into G major.
The Quiet Bit Before the Bang
I give the Andante a plain, friendly little tune, and then I repeat it even more quietly, so softly that you could be tiptoeing past a sleeping cat. At bar 16 a loud G major chord crashes in, and that single chord gave the whole symphony its nickname, although I always said the story about waking up sleepy listeners was good but not exactly true.
A Minuet in a Hurry
I marked this movement Allegro molto, which makes it the fastest and liveliest minuet I ever put in a symphony, and any dancers would need very sturdy shoes. Underneath runs a rustic oompah accompaniment, and the whole thing already leans away from the polite old dance toward what people later called the scherzo.
The Finale Has One More Trick
I wrote the finale, marked Allegro di molto, in a form called sonata rondo, which simply means a cheerful tune keeps coming back, and I even bring the opening bars back in the middle of the development section. Near the end the timpani take over, and a roll on them pushes the music suddenly into E flat, so you get a second surprise just when you thought I had finished.
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When I think back over this symphony, what stays with me most is how much quiet charm surrounds one famous chord. I wrote it in 1791, during my first visit to England, and I was glad to offer the audience something fresh. Did you enjoy learning about the best moments of Symphony No 94 in G major, Hob. I:94 "Surprise"? I hope the slow introduction, the hushed little tune and that sudden chord now sound a bit more familiar to you, and a bit more fun to listen for. There is still more to explore in Symphony No 94 in G major, Hob. I:94 "Surprise". The stormy variation in the Andante, the unusually fast minuet and the finale's timpani roll, which pushes the music somewhere unexpected, all reward a closer listen. That Andante tune also stayed with me for years, and in 1801 I let a plowman whistle it in The Seasons. Later composers had fun with it too, and Charles Ives wrote his own parody of it in 1909. If you'd like to keep going, please click on the links below to discover more about the symphony, its recordings and the story behind it. Then put on a recording, settle into a comfortable chair, and see whether you can stay relaxed when the chord arrives.