Hyperion Records

Symphony No 11, like No 5, harks back to the old Italian sonata da chiesa—the church sonata—in its four-movement form, having a fully fledged slow movement (for strings and horns) before the main Allegro. This itself is a monothematic sonata movement in a deliberately archaic, pseudo-polyphonic style, yet denying none of Haydn’s motivic and harmonic modernity. There follows a Minuet whose trio is dominated by a descending, syncopated figure that reappears in the main theme of the Presto finale, an indication that as early as 1759, Haydn was thinking of the symphony as a motivically coherent whole.

from notes by Matthew Rye © 1992