Joseph Haydn

Symphony No. 63 in C major

Symphony No. 63 'La Roxelane' the first movement of which re-employs (with reduced instrumentation and some structural adjustment to conform to its new symphonic setting) the overture to Haydn's opera Il mondo della luna which was originally composed for the 1777 season at Esterháza. The second movement, headed 'Roxelane Allegretto', is a set of variations on the French melody La Roxelane which reveals itself as an early example of the composer's favoured double-variation form of contrasting major and minor key sections. Roxelane herself is the leading female character in Les trois sultanes, a stage play by Charles Simon Favart performed by Karl Wahr and his theatrical troupe in a German translation at Esterháza in that same year with (we assume) incidental music by Haydn. The Menuetto and concluding Finale Presto of the symphony were newly-composed and do not (as far as we know) make use of re-cycled theatrical music.