Review of Matthew Riley, the Viennese Minor-Key Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Mozart (Oxford University Press, 2014)

[1] In a fascinating synthesis of critical, analytical, and historical approaches, musicologist Matthew Riley (Senior Lecturer, University of Birmingham) defines and explores structure and expression in some fifty minor-mode Viennese symphonies composed primarily between 1760 and 1790. Theorists will be particularly interested in Riley's adaptation of current form-theory approaches to unusual features in these works; he deftly appropriates Caplin's (1998) formal functions, Hepokoski and Darcy's (2006) sonata-form theory, and Gjerdingen's (2007) galant schemas. But there is also concern for expressive and rhetorical effects, and here Riley draws on markedness and topic theory. The sampling of repertoire initially suggests a subgenre of the Viennese symphony based on the markedness (Hatten 1994, 36) of minor mode alone, but modern formal functions are also useful in helping to explain still other marked features. One such feature merits a new term: the "mediant tutti," which Riley defines as a tonal shift (usually directly from V of the minor home key) to the relative major, enhanced by the entry of the full orchestra. A mediant tutti may occur either before (as a surprise) or right after a medial caesura (a medial caesura is most typically the formal articulation after V of the new key has been established and just before the second theme; see Hepokoski and Darcy 2006, 23-50). Still other marked features (e.g., contrapuntal minuets in the tonic minor, stormy finales), as well as some significant intertextual relationships, are marshaled as evidence to support the main argument of the book: that the minor-mode Austrian symphonies from 1760-90 constitute a subgenre of the Viennese symphony, one whose language is best understood as "an energized minor-mode dialect of the galant style" (4).[2] Among the various composers contributing to this repertoire-Dittersdorf, Gassmann, Haydn, Hoffmeister, Kozeluch, Mozart, Ordonez, Swieten, Vanhal, and Wagenseil-Haydn (with eleven), Johann Baptist Vanhal (with twelve), and Mozart (with two) account for fully half of the minor-mode concert symphonies and receive the greatest attention.(1) By contrast, a single chapter is devoted to the minor-mode symphonies of the three Hapsburg Imperial Court composers-Wagenseil, Gassmann, and Ordonez. These composers are nonetheless considered significant for having initiated key features of the subgenre.[3] In addition to straightforward formal analyses, Riley is clearly unafraid to make evaluative aesthetic judgments. He devotes two entire chapters to the symphonies of Vanhal (early and late, respectively) and praises him as "the best composer of instrumental music who inhabited Vienna day-to-day in the 1760s and 1770s" (8). Vanhal thus becomes the test case for establishing the consistency of those conventions supporting the subgenre thesis. Interestingly, Vanhal was largely self-taught, modeling his works on exemplary compositions. His early "paraphrasing" (79) of Haydn's first minor-key symphony beginning with an Allegro (assai), Symphony no. 39 in G minor (1765), also provides a crucial thread of historical and intertextual evidence. However, Riley notes that five other minor-mode symphonies had appeared before then (12). And by 1770, "the sample of works is large enough to establish a sense of a 'horizon of expectations' for the Viennese minor-key symphony" (4), thus enabling categorization in terms of a (sub)genre with typical formal and expressive features.[4] Riley observes that "the earliest Viennese minor-key symphonies were probably composed by Wagenseil in the early 1760s" and featured "untimely rhetoric" (as opposed to the more current galant-style rhetoric found in major-mode symphonies), including "fugato, ritornello-like gestures, trio-sonata textures, and fast-moving basslines."(2) (36) Already among the Imperial court composers (Wagenseil, Gassmann, and Ordonez) one can find a group of minor-mode symphonies and movements (often in G minor) featuring these elements. …