Farewell Symphony

The Prince sat in the music room of his country palace, listening to a new symphony by his court Kapellmeister. The stocky, periwigged Kapellmeister himself sat at the harpsichord, bobbing out the rhythm with his head, cuing in an occasional oboe or bassoon with one lace-cuffed hand. Before him peered and labored a score of white-wigged, brocaded musicians. The first oboe closed the music on his stand, blew out his candle, tiptoed from the stage. The second horn followed. One by one, other musicians got up and went out. Soon there were only two violinists left. Together they played the symphony's last note, then rose, doused their candles and departed. Silently the powder-haired Kapellmeister turned, bowed, blew out his candle, plunged the room into total darkness.

Thus did Court Composer Franz Joseph Haydn hint to his employer, Prince Esterhazy, that autumn was well along, and that he and his musicians were chafing to get back to Vienna.

That was in 1772. Last week a similar scene took place in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, where Sergei Koussevitzky's famed Boston Symphony had announced a "concert extraordinaire." Manhattan concertgoers could see that something was up when 18th-Century ushers led them to their seats. When Boston's stiff-necked orchestra appeared in silk stockings and periwigs with Conductor Koussevitzky himself got up as Franz Joseph ("Papa") Haydn, they began to catch on. Without batting an eye, poker-faced Koussevitzky led his men through Haydn's rococo whimsey, bowed gravely, pinched out his candle and left the stage.

Almost before the candle fumes were cleared, the Boston musicians returned in white pea jackets, and were on their way to town with Composer Louis Gruenberg's modernistic jazz score, Daniel Jazz. The result was hardly enough to shake a Brahmin into a shag, but it was pretty hot stuff for the Boston Symphony.

After another quick change, this time to their store clothes, Conductor Koussevitzky and his men gave Manhattanites their first taste of Serge Prokofieff's children's suite, Peter and the Wolf, made them whoop and giggle to hear Peter's duck (the oboe) quack mournfully inside the hungry wolf's stomach (three French horns). With the evening topped off with waltzes by Johann Strauss, Sibelius and Ravel, concertgoers felt that Henry Lee Higginson's band had kicked up its heels about as much as any self-respecting 58-year-old symphony had a right to.

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