‘The new D major Symphony is the last I composed for England,’ Haydn wrote with relief in his London diary. The work was first performed in 1795 and whether or not Haydn was aware of it, it would also be the lastwork of his colossal symphonic oeuvre. In the next 14 years he would not produce anything truly new. Musicologist László Somfai believes, ‘he clearly saw he could not excel himself in the genre of symphonic music’. Comparison of the D-major symphonies of the 1790s (Nos. 93, 96, 101) suggests that these works were each other’s ‘amended versions’. While they are obviously original works, they keep bringing up certain musical issues to which Haydn provides increasingly remarkable and flawless answers. Such issues include the interconnectability of the slow introduction and the fast main part, and the development of tension between the suspenseful Adagio and the liberated Allegro in a way that the two sections nevertheless form an integral whole. In other words, the question is whether it is possible to express the main idea of the movement (that is, the Allegro main theme) in a way that it should in create stark contrast with, and provide a logical sequel to, the material of the opening Adagio? In all their puritan simplicity, the middle movements are some of Haydn’s most enigmatic movements. Is the composer having a joke? Or are we looking at an overwhelmingly subjective gesture? The finale is yet another feat in folk-inspired simplicity and virtuoso complexity.