The University of Mary Washington-Community Symphony Orchestra will perform an unpublished symphony composed by 18th-century composer Joseph Haydn at its annual Masterworks Concert on Friday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall, Dodd Auditorium. The concert is open to the public at no charge.
World-renowned Haydn scholar and UMW-Community orchestra violist Stephen C. Fisher discovered the piece in 1976. He will give a lecture about that discovery on Tuesday, October 20, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Pollard Hall, Room 304. Fisher and orchestra director Kevin Bartram also will host a pre-concert lecture on Friday at 7 p.m. in Dodd Auditorium.
Fisher, who has a doctorate in the history and theory of music, stumbled across the piece after a Library of Congress employee mistakenly handed him a lost Haydn manuscript. It turned out to contain one of four movements that make up the full-length symphony.
“Haydn created two concert adaptations of this overture,” Fisher said. “He published one, but this long-lost version is more interesting musically. When I examined them in 1976, I recognized that these copies contained a different version of the piece than the ones known from other sources.”
The symphony was composed in 1773 and appeared in the collection of several Spanish court orchestras through the 1780s.
“The opening movement of this symphony is brisk and well-crafted, as one would expect of a comic-opera overture by Haydn,” Fisher said. “The tender, lyrical second movement seems to set the mood for the opening scene, in which the inhabitants of a little Italian village are relaxing in the evening breeze after a hot summer day.”
Bartram said that 30 orchestra members were selected to perform the Haydn symphony in order to reflect the typical orchestra of the period when the piece was written. To prepare for the performance, the players rehearsed on manuscript paper from 1783 to experience the age of the symphony.
“This is a major musical event, not just for UMW, but for the city,” Bartram said. “To discover a new work of Haydn’s is big news in the music world.”
Haydn, a mentor of Mozart and teacher of Beethoven, composed more than 107 symphonies and 68 quartets during his lifetime. He is often called the “father of the symphony.”
The Haydn symphony will be followed by Mozart’s “Concertone for Two Violins and Orchestra,” K. 190, also composed in 1773, and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Fisher, a native of Norfolk, has continued to focus on the Haydn symphony and related genres in the 18th and early 19th centuries. He has published numerous articles on the subject in scholarly journals. He was the principal editor of Joseph Haydn Werke, Series I, Volume 9: the Symphonies of 1778-79, and is currently editing the 10th volume of this series and a volume of C.P.E. Bach’s sonatinas for keyboard and orchestra.
Currently in its 40th year, the UMW-Community Symphony Orchestra performs at least six concerts annually and is comprised of 90 members from the student body and community.
For additional information, visit www.umw.edu/orch or call (540) 654-1012.