“At times even Homer nods off”

A symphony of Haydn is the subject of criticism in a polemic by Heinrich Christoph Koch that has received no attention to date. Haydn’s name is not actually mentioned, but it can be demonstrated from the context that the reference is to Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 (“Il distratto”). This insight forces both a re-evaluation of Koch’s relationship with the work of Haydn in the context of contemporary musical aesthetics and a debate on the methodology of “historically informed” analysis.