Haydn wrote his Symphony No. 94 "Surprise" in 1791 in London for the first of his visits to London. The premiere took place at the Hanover Square Rooms in London on March 23, 1792, with Haydn leading the orchestra seated at a fortepiano.
Haydn's music contains many jokes, and the Surprise Symphony includes probably the most famous of all: a sudden fortissimo chord at the end of an otherwise piano opening theme in the variation-form second movement. The music then returns to its original quiet dynamic, as if nothing had happened, and the ensuing variations do not repeat the joke.
This minuet and trio, is pretty quick and marks the historical shift away from the old minuet (at a slower, i.e. danceable, tempo) toward the scherzo; by the time of his last quartets Haydn had started to mark his minuets presto.
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