This movement is rich in invention, even for Haydn at his best; it is full of jollity far removed from vulgarity; the atmosphere is continuously fresh, almost fragrant, and there are endless touches of poetic seriousness. The Adagio is as profound as anything he wrote. Perhaps, on the whole—and it may be wrong to indicate a choice at all—the slow movement of the symphony in C is fullest of sustained loveliness. That phrase beginning
is, in its sheer beauty, reminiscent of Mozart, though the way the balance of feeling is recovered at the end is pure Haydn; there is the deepest human feeling, but perfect sanity is never lost. Towards the end the development is carried on in quite the Beethoven way, quite a long passage growing out of the simple phrase:
Nearly all Haydn's art, and a good deal of the art of Beethoven, may be found in the B flat symphony. The theme is announced in a minor form, adagio:
—taken up at once in the major, allegro, and wrought into most beautiful and expressive strains, each one growing out of the last (if I may once again use Wordsworth's magnificent word) "inevitably"; it could not be different.
This is a very paltry discussion of a great matter, but no more space can be given to it here. In spite of all that has been written since Haydn drew the final double-bar of the D symphony, all the twelve are yet worth days and nights of study. All that Haydn is not may be freely granted; but when we learn to know the London symphonies we learn to realize in some degree what a mighty inventive artist and workman he was.