Classical Music Playlist, October 23, 2024
The Hanover Square Rooms, London, where the chandelier was originally thought to have fallen.
Imagine you’re at the London premiere of a new symphony by Haydn in February, 1795. The symphony ends and so you and other audience members rush from your seats up to the stage to applaud the composer Franz Joseph Haydn. And just then a chandelier falls from the ceiling but, with everyone out of their seats, no one was injured and everyone calls it a miracle. Newspaper accounts from the time confirm it did happen, but the “miracle” somehow got attached to Haydn’s Symphony No. 96. It actually happened during the premiere of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102, today’s Midday Masterpiece.