# Toy Symphony

The Toy Symphony (original titles: Berchtoldsgaden Musick or Sinphonia Berchtolgadensis) is a symphony in C major dating from the 1760s with parts for toy instruments, including toy trumpet, ratchet, bird calls (cuckoo, nightingale and quail), chime tree, triangle, drum and glockenspiel. It has three movements and typically takes around ten minutes to perform.
In the 19th century it was long taken to be a work of Joseph Haydn, however a stemmatics analysis conducted by musicologist Sonja Gerlach shows that the earliest manuscripts circulating were rather associated with Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael Haydn. In 1953 musicologist Ernst Fritz Schmid published his discovery of a Cassation in G major for toys, 2 oboes, 2 horns, strings and continuo by Leopold Mozart in seven movements, three of them identical to the well-known toy symphony, and concluded to have likely found the true composer. Currently, this position is hardly acctepted any more. It is rather believed that Mozart has incorporated the earlier toy symphony into his own composition, authoring only the remaining four movements. Most recently (1996) the Austrian Benedictine monk Edmund Angerer [de] (1740–1794) has been suggested to be the composer. If Angerer's manuscript (from 1765, entitled "Berchtolds-Gaden Musick") is the original, the Toy Symphony was originally written not in G but in C major. There is reason to believe that the true composer will likely never be known, in whole or in part, given its confused origins and the paucity of related manuscript sources.
The symphony consists of three movements:
* Allegro
* Menuetto – Trio (F major)
* Finale: Allegro

## Other works for toy instruments

The toy symphony described above was one of a number of anonymous toy symphonies composed at Berchtesgaden near Salzburg, then a manufacturing centre for toy instruments. Some of the instruments used for these can be seen in the Museum Carolino Augusteum in Salzburg.
Other toy symphonies, overtures and works for ensembles by named composers include:
* Felix Mendelssohn: Two Kindersymphonien (1827, 1828)
* Bernhard Romberg: Symphonie burlesque, 'Toy Symphony', Op. 62 (first published 1852)
* Ignaz Lachner: Toy Symphony, Op. 85 (circa 1850s)
* August Conradi: Christmas Overture for piano and five toy instruments (1860s?)
* Henri Kling (1842–1918): Kitchen Symphony
* Cornelius Gurlitt: Kindersymphonie, Op.169 (1890)
* Carl Reinecke: Kinder-Symphonie, 'Toy Symphony', Op. 239 (1895)
* Emma Lomax: Toy Overture (1915)
* Adam Carse: Childhood's Happy Days, a Toy Suite for piano and seven toy instruments
* Malcolm Arnold: Toy Symphony, Op. 62 (1957)
* Joseph Horovitz: Jubilee Toy Symphony (1977)
* Christopher Brown: Toy Symphony (1986)
* Stephen Montague: A Toy Symphony, for six amateur performers and chamber orchestra (1999)
* Tod Machover: Toy Symphony (2002)
Malcolm Arnold's Toy Symphony was first performed at a Savoy Hotel fund raising dinner in London on 28 November 1957, with toy instruments played by a group of eminent composers, musicians and personalities, including Thomas Armstrong, Edric Cundell, Gerard Hoffnung, Eileen Joyce, Steuart Wilson and Leslie Woodgate. Similarly, the Jubilee Toy Symphony by Joseph Horovitz was composed for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977 and featured Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Richard Baker, Joseph Cooper, Humphrey Burton, James Blades, Fenella Fielding, Nigel Kennedy, Yehudi Menuhin, Steve Race and Malcolm Williamson, among others. Tod Machover's piece deploys custom musical toys as electronic controllers.