Movement 3

• Minuet


  A courtly dance, traditionally elegant and graceful, an opportunity for the aristocracy to show their dancing
• Haydn's minuets are faster and more aggressive compared to traditional minuets
• Aggressive minuet style


  1. Profusion of offbeat accents

  2. Rhythmically robust music

  3. Hemiola that cuts across the triple time meter
• Structure of the movement

  • Ternary form (minuet-trio-minuet)
  • Each section in rounded binary form
• Key relationship between minuet and trio

  Minuet in D major, trio in the more distant key of B-flat major
• Transition from trio to minuet reprise

  Harmonically driven link section modulating from B-flat major to D major
• Silences play an important role in this movement
• Silences in the minuet

  Sudden cut-off of an anacrusis after a perfect cadence, creating two bars of complete silence
• Silences in the trio

  Similar diversion towards the subdominant and cut-off, but more subtle and gentle
• Motivic material


  • Rising arpeggio motif (X)
  • Auxiliary note motif (Y)
  • Relationship between minuet and trio motifs