The Symphony No. 51 in B major, Hoboken I/51, is a symphony by Joseph Haydn, written in either 1773 or 1774,James Webster & Georg Feder, The New Grove Haydn. New York: Macmillan (2002): 64. Haydn's symphonies of the years around 1770 ... are widely described as exemplifying his Sturm und Drang style; those of 1773–4 (nos.50, 51, 54–7, 60, 64), while less extreme, have many points of contact with it." although the exact dating remains ambiguous.Daniel Heartz, Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School, 1740–1780. W.W. Norton & Company (), pp. 363-364 (1995).
Scored for two oboes, two horns (B alto, E), bassoon, and strings, the symphony is in four movements:
Sometimes described as "a concertante piece featuring the two horns, which are given parts of staggering difficulty."Antony Hodgson, The Music of Joseph Haydn: The Symphonies. London: The Tantivy Press (1976): 78 The second, slow, movement contains high notes for the first horn (including a written F6 for horn in E) and very low notes for the second horn.H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, 5 vols, (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1976– ) v. 2, Haydn at Eszterhaza, 1766–1790.. The third movement contains an even higher note for horn, a written C6 for horn in B alto (sounding as B5), one of the highest notes ever written for horn. Heartz has noted the character of the fourth movement as reminiscent of the French rondeau. The first contrasting section is an oboe solo in E major and the second contrasting section is fortissimo and in G minor.
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