Although Haydn's "Morning" and "Noon" symphonies (numbers 6 and 7) paid their respects to conventions of the Baroque era, his "Night" Symphony looks forward to the developing Classical period. There's no evidence that Haydn wrote this work with anything nocturnal in mind; the title was appended by his boss, Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. A happy, slightly irregularly phrased, lightly dancing tune eases the Allegro molto movement into action. It's really the only theme out of which Haydn constructs the movement, although he does draw variety from whirling material for full orchestra that grows out of the melody. The development passes snatches of the melody around to various orchestral soloists, and the recapitulation is upon us before we realize that the development has ended. The Andante is a tender, lyrical movement that distributes its main melody among the first-stand string players. The movement proceeds through a very mild minor-mode variation before restating the long opening section essentially as it began. The Minuet follows the evolving conventions of the time, with extremely regular phrasing and the strings and woodwinds playing off against each other in their own separate episodes. Unexpectedly the trio section turns into a miniature double bass concerto—quite a noble one, without a trace of the clownishness that would afflict the instrument beginning in the nineteenth century. The symphony's alternate nickname, "La Tempesta," comes from the stormy final Presto. It begins with a quick drizzle of notes from the solo violin and then flute, and develops into an intermittent shower of sixteenth notes washing through the orchestra. With the absence of timpani, thunder is implied merely by some forceful, rapidly descending string figures. Some four decades later, Haydn would reuse many of these ideas in the storm sequence of his oratorio The Seasons.

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