Symphony No 7 begins with a slow introduction and the concertante-ripieno concept is expanded to the typically Corellian trio of two violins and cello as soloists. For the second movement Haydn turns his attention to another area of Italian music—the operatic recitativo accompagnato, or accompanied recitative—a mode of setting dialogue in opera that Haydn himself was to use in his own operas and which remained popular until the time of Rossini. In the words of the Haydn scholar H C Robbins Landon, ‘the solo violin produces a realistic parody of the anguished dramatic soprano of Metastasian opera seria’, though what she might be singing about is left to our imagination. The slow movement proper introduces two flutes for the first time in the symphony (a touch Haydn often employed—saving a particular timbre later in a work for special effect), yet it is the cadenza for violin and cello that forms one of the work’s most remarkable passages. The violone (probably played by the bassoonist Georg Schwenda) again has a solo in the Minuet’s trio and the first movement’s instrumental disposition returns for the spirited finale.
from notes by Matthew Rye © 1991