Around Haydn's Hundredth Symphony

Joseph Haydn and Giovanni Battista Viotti: they moved to the musical hotspot of London over 230 years ago. Their source of inspiration: Christoph Willibald von Gluck. The latter wrote his ballet Don Juan thirty years earlier.

Haydn the entertainer
When Haydn arrived in London on Jan. 1, 1791, he was nearly sixty and a celebrity who had hardly been outside Austria. Between 1791 and 1795, he gave concerts in London, for which he composed 12 symphonies. Haydn was a born entertainer and loved to surprise his audiences with new inventions. In his Hundredth Symphony, he added drums and cymbals to the orchestral scoring. Instruments that were then only used in opera and the military. Hence the nickname "Military Symphony.

Liya Petrova plays Viotti
Bulgarian Liya Petrova follows in the footsteps of Haydn's colleague Viotti - a celebrated violin virtuoso who also wanted to try his luck in London. On Feb. 7, 1793, he made his London debut, in a benefit concert conducted by Haydn. It may well be that on the occasion he presented his Violin Concerto No. 22 - a favorite work of Brahms, who quoted it in his Double Concerto. Gluck was an inspiration to Haydn as well as Viotti, as a great opera innovator and as the first composer to write ballet music in which the drama and not the hopping dance played the leading role.