(Section C)
Led by Marie Wilson
Conducted by Trevor Harvey
A Haydn Programme
Overture: Armida
Symphony No. 99, in E flat
1 Adagio—Vivace assai. 2 Adagio...
3 Minuetto: Allegretto. 4 Vivace
Haydn's opera Armida is one of eleven operas written for various functions at the palace of Esterhaz. Composed in 1783, Haydn considered Armida his best work up to the present'. The Overture is one of the earliest examples of making an operatic overture a kind of symphonic poem which is intended to prepare the audience for what he is to experience dramatically in the opera. Dr. Karl Geiringer tells us tha 'the opera relates how the crusader Rinaldo is ensnared by passion for the sorceress Armida, and returns to his duty only after a deep inner conflict