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Symphony No. 44 is one of a number of Haydn’s middle period works often regarded as representing the so-called Sturm und Drang (‘Storm and Stress’) style of melodramatic realism taken over from contemporary German literary and dramatic models. The symphony is monotonal – each movement being in the same key, with contrast provided by excursions into the tonic major. Contrapuntal writing pervades the whole work; the second movement, unusually, is a minuet and is a strict double canon at one bar’s interval (‘Canone in Diapason’ is Haydn’s term) which itself is contrasted by the lyrical Trio section in the tonic major. The third movement, an Adagio in the tonic major, prompted the symphony’s long-adopted soubriquet, ‘Trauer’ (‘Mourning’) as it was said to have been requested by the composer himself to be played at his own funeral.2 The monothematic contrapuntal Finale reverts to the tense emotional level of the opening Allegro.
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Music example (pdf)