|
Hob 3# |
Opus # |
Key |
New Grove Number |
Instrument(s) |
Notes |
|
69 |
71 #1 |
Bb |
54 |
2 Violins, Viola & Cello |
The first two were begun in 1792 and Haydn changed the dates on the manuscripts to 1793, most likely so all would be the same. The dedication to Count Apponyi came later, when they were published. |
|
70 |
71 #2 |
D |
55 |
||
|
71 |
71 #3 |
Eb |
56 |
||
|
72 |
74 #1 |
C |
57 |
||
|
73 |
74 #2 |
F |
58 |
||
|
74 |
74 #3 |
g |
59 |
It is one thing to sit here, as a writer/researcher, and complain to my audience how there is no information available about some less well-known bit or piece Haydn wrote. Many times I am delighted to just have a recording to listen to, and a mention in some book or other which gives me at least a vague idea about when it was composed. But it is something else again when the piece(s) in question include some of Haydn's finest late quartets, all of which comes together as something of a mystery here.
And indeed, this is the case with the London Quartets, which I shall call them to avoid the clumsy and misleading 'Opuses 71/74' name. I don't blame musicology in general, it really seems as though there is little or no documentation about their origins, or Haydn's thoughts on them. Landon tells us that Haydn wrote them as a set of six, in the summer of 1793, while he was on a trip to Eisenstadt with Beethoven and the young Polzelli. And now I've told you everything there is to tell about the creation history of the London Quartets.
This, however, doesn't cover the entire literature about these works. About 98% of what you can find is descriptions and evaluations of how Haydn changed his style to suit the London audience. Which begs the question: why would the generally acknowledged greatest composer of quartets want to change his style?
In his book, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn, Simon McVeigh informs us that we shouldn't be deceived into the idea that London was just adopting and adapting its preferences from other places. String Quartets were listed in publishers' catalogs right alongside symphonies, as music for professionals to play at concerts. Where else do you find that? And as we saw in an earlier essay in this series, a French style of quartet, the quatuor brillant, achieved the highest popularity. The New Grove describes it like this:
The early 1780s were watershed years for the quartet. In 1782 Viotti arrived in Paris, where he introduced the quatuor brillant, which largely supplanted the quatuor concertant; essentially an accompanied solo, the quatuor brillant style, already evident in some works by Sammartini, was characterized by passages of a purely mechanical brilliance and opportunities for concerto-like cadenzas. The influence of the quatuor brillant was widespread; even in Vienna during the 1780s and '90s this style was cultivated at times…
Doesn't sound much like Haydn, does it? The quartets played during the first trip were almost certainly from Opus 64. These works were the epitome of Haydn's Viennese style, conversational, virtuosic (but not "mechanically brilliant"!), nearly perfect in their symmetry and beauty. All of which made them ideal for the salon or drawing room, for which they were conceived. But for the large auditorium concert stage? Well, perhaps not so much. It should be noted that while the newspapers certainly didn't pan them, neither did they wax rhapsodic over them the way they did about the symphonies and specialty works like the Sinfonia concertante or The Storm.
|
Opus / Movement |
I |
II |
III |
IV |
||||||||||
|
71 #1 |
Allegro |
Bb |
4/4 |
Adagio |
F |
6/8 |
Allegretto |
Bb |
3/4 |
Vivace |
Bb |
2/4 |
||
|
71 #2 |
Adagio – Allegro |
D |
4/4 |
Adagio cantabile |
A |
3/4 |
Allegro |
D |
3/4 |
Rondo: Allegretto – Allegro |
D |
6/8 |
||
|
71 #3 |
Vivace |
Eb |
2/4 |
Andante con moto |
Bb |
2/4 |
Menuet – Trio |
Eb |
3/4 |
Vivace |
Eb |
6/8 |
||
|
74 #1 |
Allegro |
C |
4/4 |
Andantino [grazioso] |
G |
3/8 |
Allegro |
C – A |
3/4 |
Vivace |
C |
2/4 |
||
|
74 #2 |
Allegro spiritoso |
F |
2/2 |
Andante grazioso |
Bb |
2/4 |
Menuet - Trio |
F – Db |
3/4 |
Presto |
F |
2/4 |
||
|
74 #3 |
Allegro |
g - G |
3/4 |
Largo assai |
E |
2/2 |
Allegretto |
G – g |
3/4 |
Allegro con brio |
g - G |
4/4 |
||
Does this mean Haydn suddenly was now turning out quatuors brillant? Hardly. I doubt he had it in him to write that sort of music. It would have been too great a compromise. But there is no doubt he made some special adaptations to the particular tastes he had observed in London on the first journey. And descriptions of these changes are what constitute, today, nearly all of whatever literature I have found on these works. The downside is this: unless you are a musician, theoretician or musicologist, not a whole lot of this is anything but pretty dry reading.
According to Laszlo Somfai, in his essay The London Revision of Haydn's Instrumental Style, the driving force behind Haydn's need to adopt, even if temporarily, some new style features stems from a compulsion which I have mentioned in these pages many times now: he always felt compelled to win the hearts of an imaginary audience, one he must have given considerable thought to while sitting in the seclusion of Eszterháza. And now, having already been to London and actually meeting and observing this foreign audience for the first time, he was prepared to dig in and put his observations to practical use.
Somfai points out what is, perhaps, one of the larger problems, certainly one which Haydn hadn't anticipated in 1790 in Vienna. I think it is fair to assume some measure of surprise when, in a far larger concert hall than he had dealt with before, on stage appeared a string quartet! What sort of sonic implications might that entail? One of the absolute hallmarks of Haydn's style until then had been the great dynamic changes, and especially in the quartets. Also, fast, highly articulated passages where the notes had to be detached from each other would lose their effect altogether in a large, reverberant acoustic. And for that matter, what about the audience itself? A thousand people packed into a room, not only coughing, talking and laughing, but even passively absorbing the sound. Clearly a challenge fit for a master to resolve!
|
Dem Andenken Joseph Haydn Des unsterblichen Meisters Der Tonkunst, Dem Ohr und Herz Wetteifernd huldigen, Gewidmet Von Karl Leonhard Graf von Harrach. Im Jahr 1793 |
|
|
|
1st Tablet: To the memory ------------------------ 2nd Tablet: Rohrau |
And resolve it he did. As always, if this line is your particular interest, the answers are certainly available to you. For the historian, suffice to say that the part writing of very similar thematic material to what appears in Opus 64 is approached in an entirely different way, one which allows the solo instrument, whichever it may be, to be most expressive. Given the quality of the players, which Haydn knew, and especially of Salomon, it was a chance for them to shine. Which is exactly what the audience wanted in a quartet. Of course, the most famous aspect of these works was the addition of a "noise killer" introduction. One way this was achieved was by a single loud chord placed before the opening double-bar (thus not repeated), as in Opus 71 #3, or even two chords, as in Op 74 #1. These chords were not part of the theme music further on, they just said 'wake up'. But even more satisfying is where Haydn used chords which did become part of the main theme, so they were much more integrated into the music. Opus 74 #2 has one like this, and even more-so, Opus 74 #3, the most famous of the set, if only so for its sensational closing movement, called The Rider.
How much of a change in Haydn's overall style did this adaptation for London bring about? One would think there would be some sort of holdover as a result of the London experience. But we are stymied when we look for it in the symphonies, since obviously there are none after London, Haydn seemingly feeling he had said all he had to say in the genre. The very next quartets he wrote after London were Opus 76, where Haydn again reached a new level of composition. And the very first one of these, the wonderful G major, opens with three forte chords. Perhaps they were just a brief reminiscence of London. But after that, the remaining seven quartets he would write bear no trace of an elaborately worked out 'noise-killer' or any of the unique ideas so particular to success in London.
1793 is slowly winding to a close. While Haydn is busy in Vienna, getting cut off short by Elector Max Franz, and finding a new teacher for his pupil, Beethoven, who was now going to be left behind instead of going along to London, as well as supplying music for the dance season and yet another musical clock for Niemecz, a singular event was taking place, one which he would not learn of until his return from London two years hence.
This happened in far off Rohrau. Haydn hadn't seen his hometown since Mathias Haydn's passing in 1763. Count Karl Leonhard Harrach (1765–1831) was the present owner of the town and son of Count Karl Anton. Haydn's mother, Anna Maria Koller (1707–54), had, before her marriage to Mathias, been a cook at Harrach's castle.
Harrach, much later in a letter to Dies, explained that he wanted to redo the castle gardens in the English style, and he "thought it right and proper, and also honorable for my park, to erect a monument for the so-famous J. Haydn in the castle grounds which encompassed his birthplace. Haydn was then in England (NB - so circa 1791 or '92) and was but little known to me, and he had no idea of my undertaking; and it was not until two or three years later that he happened to hear that this monument in Rohrau existed…"
Harrach was a bit too modest about the park, which was on the River Leitha. The original setting of the monument was on an island he had created, which was planted with Italian Poplars, as can be seen in this old engraving at the top of the page. Even in Haydn's lifetime this monument became a popular tourist attraction: in 1800 even old French Count Zinzendorf, who had been a Haydn fan since he was hired by Prince Pal Anton in 1761, went all the way to Rohrau to see the monument! At some unspecified point in time (but possibly in 1887), the town of Rohrau took the monument and refurbished it, placing it in front of City Hall, where it can be seen today. We will talk more about this in future, when Haydn returns from the second London Journey. And that is where we will be going next time.
Thanks for reading!