Haydn Quartets (Mozart)
The Haydn Quartets by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were published in Vienna in 1785. They came with a dedication signed on the 1st of September 1785, written in Italian, the language of high culture in eighteenth-century Vienna. Mozart called his six string quartets "the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor." He asked Joseph Haydn to be their "Father, Guide and Friend."
The six quartets took Mozart over two years to complete. The first was finished on the 31st of December 1782. The last was completed on the 14th of January 1785.
The dedication letter refers to a recent occasion on which Haydn had already praised the works directly to Mozart. What Haydn said on that occasion would prove to be among the most celebrated judgments in the history of Western music.
Joseph Haydn has long carried the title of "father of the string quartet." By 1781, he had completed his influential Op. 33 String Quartets. Those works established essential conventions of structure and expression for the genre. That same year, Mozart moved to Vienna to begin his freelance career.
Singer Michael Kelly left an account, later described as spurious, of the two men playing chamber music together. In Kelly's version, Haydn took first violin with Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf on second, Mozart on viola, and Johann Baptist Wanhal on cello. Each composer is documented as having genuine admiration for the other.
A gap of nearly a decade separated these quartets from Mozart's last attempt in the genre, the Viennese Quartets of 1773. His return to the form in the early 1780s placed him directly in Haydn's shadow. Haydn would hear all six of the finished quartets within weeks of the last one being written.
By the time Mozart composed these six quartets, the string quartet had settled into a consistent four-movement structure. The set follows this pattern: an opening Allegro in sonata form, then a slow movement. After that comes a Minuetto and Trio, followed by a concluding Allegro. That final movement may be in sonata, rondo, or variation form. In different quartets, the slow movement and the minuet swap positions.
The slow movements carry what commentators have described as the "emotional center" of each quartet. These passages feature rich cantabile melodic writing with multiple themes and elaborate embellishment. The approach departs noticeably from what is called the Haydnesque mode.
No. 15 in D minor carries the urgency of Sturm und Drang, the German storm-and-stress tradition of late eighteenth-century art. No. 16 in E major and No. 19 in C major, the "Dissonance," both open with pronounced tonal strangeness. No. 17 in B major, the "Hunt," closes in the light, comic style of opera buffa. Before any of this music reached an audience, Mozart had to settle its commercial fate with a publisher.
Jean-Georges Sieber was Mozart's first choice of publisher for the six quartets. Mozart approached him before the set was complete, requesting 50 Louis d'or as his fee. Sieber declined. The works went instead to Artaria and Company, who announced all six in the Wiener Zeitung on the 17th of September 1785. According to Leopold Mozart, Artaria paid the composer 100 ducats for the publishing rights.
Haydn's name was commercially valuable at this moment. Less than a year before Mozart completed his set, Ignaz Pleyel had dedicated his Opus 2 Quartets to Haydn, and they sold widely. Mozart had urged his father to seek out Pleyel's earlier Opus 1 Quartets. Those works most likely reflected Leopold's advice to compose simple, marketable music.
Between 1784 and 1811, sixteen different composers would dedicate their string quartets to Haydn. When Mozart published the set, he arranged the quartets mostly in the order he wrote them. One exception: K. 428 and K. 458 were reversed in position. Artaria published the set as Mozart's Opus 10; the critical argument over the "Dissonance" quartet was not long in coming.
Haydn first heard all six quartets at two gatherings in Mozart's home, on the 15th of January and the 12th of February 1785. After hearing them all, he turned to Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang's father, and spoke.
His words were preserved in a letter Leopold wrote on the 16th of February 1785 to his daughter Nannerl. Haydn had said: "Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."
The dedication addresses Haydn as "dearest Friend" multiple times and quotes his satisfaction back to him. Mozart writes that Haydn had expressed this satisfaction "during your last Visit to this Capital." He ends by resigning "all my rights" in the six quartets to Haydn's care. The dedication closes with a specific hope: that the quartets would "serve to afford me solace one day." What Vienna made of them would answer whether that hope was met.
Artaria reissued the "Haydn" Quartets in 1787 and again in 1789. The original printing plates wore out from demand and had to be re-engraved for a third edition in 1791. A 1789 review in Cramer's Magazin der Musik acknowledged Mozart's "decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual." The same review added: "But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!" That double-edged response would prove representative of a broader pattern.
Giuseppe Sarti published an attack on K. 465, the "Dissonance" quartet, calling sections "barbarous," "execrable," and "miserable." He cited the quartet's use of whole-tone clusters and chromatic extremes as the source of offense. Francois-Joseph Fetis went further, publishing a "corrected" version that implied Mozart had made errors. By 1799, an anecdote in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung claimed that Artaria had sent the quartets to Italy for publication. The Italian publishers returned them, reportedly saying the engraving was "full of mistakes."
Heinrich Christoph Koch praised the quartets for their "mixture of strict and free styles and the treatment of harmony." Favorable notices arrived from newspapers in Salzburg and Berlin shortly after publication. In the early nineteenth century, the theorist Jerome-Joseph de Momigny wrote an extended analysis of No. 15 in D minor, K. 421. He used a text setting based on Dido's Lament to explore that quartet's expressive qualities. The "Haydn" Quartets are now considered "established keystones" of the chamber music repertoire and are heard frequently in concerts, radio broadcasts, and recordings.
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Common questions
What are the Haydn Quartets by Mozart?
The Haydn Quartets are a set of six string quartets by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, published in Vienna in 1785 as his Opus 10. Mozart dedicated the set to Joseph Haydn, calling the works in his dedication "the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor."
Why did Mozart dedicate his string quartets to Joseph Haydn?
Mozart's decision to dedicate the set to Haydn was almost certainly designed to increase sales. Less than a year before he completed his quartets, Ignaz Pleyel had dedicated his Opus 2 Quartets to Haydn and they sold widely. Between 1784 and 1811, sixteen different composers would dedicate string quartets to Haydn.
What did Haydn say about Mozart after hearing the Haydn Quartets?
After hearing all six quartets in Mozart's home in January and February 1785, Haydn told Leopold Mozart: "Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition." Leopold preserved the remark in a letter to his daughter Nannerl dated the 16th of February 1785.
When were the Mozart Haydn Quartets composed and published?
Mozart composed the six quartets between the 31st of December 1782 and the 14th of January 1785. Artaria and Company announced their publication in the Wiener Zeitung on the 17th of September 1785, and according to Leopold Mozart, Artaria paid the composer 100 ducats.
Why is the Dissonance quartet K. 465 considered controversial?
K. 465, the "Dissonance" quartet, opens with whole-tone clusters and chromatic extremes that drew hostile reactions from contemporaries. Composer Giuseppe Sarti called sections "barbarous," "execrable," and "miserable," and Francois-Joseph Fetis published a "corrected" version implying Mozart had made errors. By 1799, an anecdote claimed Italian publishers returned copies saying the engraving was "full of mistakes."
What is the musical structure of the Haydn Quartets by Mozart?
Each of the six "Haydn" Quartets follows a four-movement structure: an opening Allegro in sonata form, a slow movement, a Minuetto and Trio, and a final Allegro. The slow movement, described as the "emotional center" of each work, features cantabile melodic writing with multiple themes. The slow movement and the minuet swap positions across different quartets in the set.
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