Relayed from the National Museum of Wales.

Few composers score a hundred Symphonies. Haydn achieved this feat, but, of course, those were the early days of the Symphony, and, compared with a modern Symphony, many of those, written in the eighteenth-century are simple little trifles.
Still, however simple and unpretentious, Haydn's Symphonies are delightfully fresh and tuneful, as we may well judge from his Symphony in E Flat now to be played.
Like a good miny of Haydn's Symphonies, it has a nickname, but it is not clear why it was called The Philosopher: probably the name links it with some familiar character of the time of its composition, which was about 1764. Haydn had been then for three years in the service of an excellent master, Prince Esterhazy, as Director of Music-a post he was to hold for the rest of his life.