MOZARTEUM ORCHESTRA SALZBURG - ORCHESTRA CONCERT

Heinrich Christoph Koch describes in his "Musical Lexicon" from 1802 the purpose and effect of a fermata: "Such a pause in the progression of a piece of music, during which the movement of the beat is intentionally interrupted for a time by holding a note much longer or lingering longer on a small pause than its duration requires. The sign used to indicate the note or small pause at which the beat movement is to be interrupted in this way is a curve with a dot placed above the note or pause. […] The expression of wonder or astonishment, a sensation where the movements of the mind seem to come to a brief standstill, or those moments where the existing feeling seems to have exhausted itself through its complete outpouring, are sufficient to favor the existence of such fermatas."

In Symphony No. 56 in C major, referred to in literature as "Trumpet Symphony" due to the required 2 trumpets in addition to the 2 horns, Joseph Haydn pauses time at particularly special points in the first movement with the help of a fermata. The first time Haydn halts the flow is to capture the maximum attention of his listeners for the emergence of the so-called second theme, also known as the side theme. The theme is easily recognizable because it is presented solely by the strings. A second fermata is found in the section known as the development, characterized by special harmonic instability. Here, Joseph Haydn pauses the music at a moment where listeners of Haydn's time might have suspected that the composer had lost himself in the turmoil of harmony. Haydn audibly savors this moment—and before he loses the listener, the orchestra continues and moves back into familiar harmonic paths. A third time, Haydn pauses time once more in the first movement: the side theme from earlier sounds again, this time enriched by the solo oboe.