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The Symphony No. 44 in E minor by Joseph Haydn was written sometime around 1770. It has the nickname Trauer (Mourning) apparently because late in life Haydn asked for its slow movement to be played at his funeral.

The piece is typical of Haydn's Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) period. The first movement, which is in sonata form, begins with a four-note motif played in unison which occurs throughout the movement. The second movement, unusually, is a minuet in E minor and trio in E major (this movement would normally come third). The minuet is in the form of a canon between the upper and lower strings.

The third movement is slow, also in E major, and with strings muted. The finale, like the first movement, is in sonata form and is dominated by a figure which opens the movement in unison. It is quite contrapuntal, and ends in E minor rather than finishing in a major key as was usual in most other minor key works of the time.

Symphony No. 45, known as the Farewell (German: Abschieds-Symphonie) was written in 1772. It is in the key of F-sharp minor, and is one of Haydn's better-known works from this period.

The piece is written for two oboes, a bassoon, two horns, and strings (violins divided into two, violas, cellos and double basses). As is usual for symphonies, it is in four movements.

It was written for Haydn's patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, while he, Haydn and the court orchestra were at the Prince's summer palace in Eszterhaza. The stay there had been longer than expected, and most of the musicians had been forced to leave their wives back at home in Eisenstadt, so in the last movement of the symphony, Haydn subtly hinted to his patron that perhaps he might like to allow the musicians to return home: during the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left (played by Haydn himself and the concertmaster, Alois Luigi Tomasini). Esterházy apparently got the message: the court returned to Eisenstadt the day following the performance.