London No. 12-Joseph Haydn's 'Eulenburg Pocket Score' is the result of his second trip to England in 1794. This work is one of the still popular from the series of the so-called '12 London Symphonies' (Hob. 1/93 - Hob. 104).The work characterized by musical finesse and various sonic stimuli has the following four movements: I. Adagio - Allegro - II. Allegretto (C major) - III. Menuet: Moderato - IV. Presto. The somewhat unusual epithet 'military symphony' refers essentially to the second and the fourth movement ('Allegretto' and 'Presto') in which the instrumentation is enriched by timpani triangle cymbals and bass drum and thereby the evokes the impression of amilitary band. A 'trumpet signal' especially set in the second movement led to such a characterization. On the value and importance of this G major Symphony the following article from the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of April 1799 reveals: 'It is a little less learned and easier to grasp than some of the other's newest works but new ones Ideas just as rich as they. Perhaps the surprise in music can not be furthered than it is here by the sudden collapse of full Janissary music in the minor of the second movement-since until then one has no suspicion that these Turkish instruments are attached to the symphony. But here too not only the inventive but also the prudent artist shows. Nevertheless the Andante is nevertheless a whole: for in all the pleasing and easy things that the composer in order to infer from the idea of his coup deceitfully brought it into the first part of it it is nevertheless arranged and worked in a march.' The 'Military Symphony' was premiered on March 31 1799 in London.
