String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn)

• 1. The Swamp And The Storm

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  Joseph Haydn stood forty years old in 1772 when he began writing six string quartets that would change music history. He worked as Kapellmeister for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy at the Eszterháza palace southeast of Vienna. The building sat on a large swamp and remained humid all year round. A vexatious north wind blew through the halls, causing illness among the musicians who lived there. Haydn and his colleagues suffered from depression while separated from their families for months. This heavy atmosphere seeped into the music itself. Two of the quartets chose minor keys, which was rare for this ensemble type at the time. The fifth quartet settled in F minor, a key described by Cobbett as predisposing even Haydn to sombre thoughts. New philosophical ideas were sweeping Europe during these years. Jean-Jacques Rousseau spoke of human freedom and returning to nature. Poets Goethe and Schiller led the Sturm und Drang movement that exalted feeling over rationalism. Haydn rejected the galante style, the courtly and simplified music popular then. He embraced national folk music and wrote with emotional intensity.

• 2. Four Rational People Conversing

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  Goethe once called the string quartet four rational people conversing. Before Opus 20, the first violin usually dominated the texture. Lower voices like viola and cello simply accompanied the melody. Haydn gave each instrument its own voice in these six works. The second quartet opens with a cello solo played above accompanying instruments. Every instrument gets to play the solo throughout the movement. Even the viola receives a vote in what Tovey called the parliament of four. The slow movement of the fourth quartet features a duet between viola and second violin. A third variation offers a solo for cello alone. This equality of voices solved the problem of quartet writing through counterpoint. Fugue texture put all four instruments on equal footing. Some scholars point to earlier works by Franz Xaver Richter as evidence that Haydn was not the first to achieve such balance. Yet Haydn perfected this interplay here. His dedication to the form remains mysterious since no record exists of a string quartet concert performed at Eszháza during this period. The set became known as the Sun quartets because a rising sun picture graced an early edition cover published in Paris by Louis-Balthazar de La Chevardière in 1774.

• 3. The Return Of Baroque Fire

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  Three of the six quartets end with fugues, reviving Baroque techniques that had fallen out of favor. Haydn wrote comments directly into the score explaining the fugal structure. He marked Al rovescio in the last movement of quartet number two where the melody plays in inversion. In the finale of number five he wrote In canone. The finale of number six is a Fuga a 3 Soggetti, a fugue with three subjects. These movements start sotto voce and build tension without increasing volume until a sudden burst of forte. Tovey noted that Haydn hinted at the emotional impulse which later became volcanic in Beethoven's fugues. Counterpoint appears beyond these finales too. The opening of the second quartet features viola and second violins playing countersubjects to the cello's principal line. In the adagio movement of the fifth quartet, Haydn writes per figuram retardationis, meaning the first violin lags behind harmonic changes. Enormous importance lies in these fugues according to Tovey. They effectively establish fugue texture as a normal resource for sonata style from henceforth. Haydn clothes them in dramatic structures suitable for Sturm und Drang philosophy.

• 4. Dancing Without A Beat

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  The common practice divided melodies neatly into four- or eight-measure chunks. Haydn broke this rule repeatedly across Opus 20. The opening phrase of the third quartet spans seven measures instead of four. Its minuet divides into two phrases of five measures each. Most minuets here are impossible to dance to because they lack traditional structure. The minuet of the second quartet uses tied suspensions so listeners lose all sense of downbeat. It recalls the sound of a musette de cour bagpipe through pedal tones. The fourth quartet contains an alla zingarese movement with off-beat rhythms. The minuet of the fifth quartet has a first section of eighteen measures divided asymmetrically. Haydn strayed so far from formal dance structures that he later called his next set scherzos instead of minuets. He also experimented with false reprises in the fourth quartet. After development sections, he presented dominant arpeggios leading back to themes but continued developing anyway. He sneaked back into real reprises when listeners did not notice. These structural anomalies created asymmetry and surprise throughout the works.

• 5. Silence And Sorrow In G Minor

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  The third quartet in G minor stands among the more enigmatic pieces in the repertory according to William Drabkin. Its opening theme builds from two phrases of seven measures each, defying galante practice. Haydn inserts brief unisono passages marked piano for surprising effect where forte was expected. The finale makes dramatic use of silence; the four-bar theme breaks off suddenly for half-measure pauses. Such pauses recur giving the movement a mildly disruptive effect. The slow movement includes a haunting cello solo spanning bars 70 to 83, unusual for Haydn's quartets. The trio section ends with a plagal cadence to G major before the minuet recapitulates in G minor again. This jolting move from major back to minor leads Drabkin to speculate the trio might have been borrowed from another piece. The fifth quartet in F minor is the most emotionally intense of the set. It rolls out almost without interruption as phrases run together rather than ending with cadences. The first violin leads with concertante parts while other voices play independent roles. The finale features a fugue with two subjects that stays sotto voce until the first violin erupts to forte.

• 6. Six Works In Detail

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  The first quartet presents its second theme by cello playing high above viola accompaniment. A pretended recapitulation returns after three bars but deviates into transpositions before sneaking back to the main theme. The second movement follows traditional dance rules unlike others in the set. Its third movement marks Affettuoso e sostenuto written in A major as an aria carried by first violin. The finale uses syncopations extensively where no instrument plays on the downbeat during one passage. The fourth quartet opens quietly then bursts into arpeggios before lapsing back to calm. False reprises appear repeatedly in its development section. The slow movement offers variations where second violin and viola share the melody initially. The Alla zingarese minuet creates cross-rhythms confusing all sense of downbeat despite being in common time. The final movement ends in pianissimo, evaporating like several others of the set. The sixth quartet remains the most conservative work though it tries new ideas. It shifts keys relentlessly from tonic through dominant to minor and back again within the exposition. Its minuet is strictly danceable and varies the first theme of the opening movement. This provides one of the most explicit examples of cyclic form in Haydn's entire output.

• 7. Echoes In Beethoven And Brahms

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  Beethoven studied these scores carefully before composing his own Opus 18 quartets. He copied them out entirely and scored the first for string orchestra. Their relationship remained love-hate throughout his life since Haydn criticized his early compositions harshly. Yet Beethoven spoke of Haydn with reverence even after the elder composer died. A letter written in 1812 stated Do not rob Handel Haydn and Mozart of their laurel wreaths. Brahms owned the autograph manuscript and annotated it extensively before bequeathing it to Vienna's Society of Friends of Music. Some scholars dispute how much impact Haydn alone had on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Euna Na points out that Mozart shares linguistic elements more directly with Michael Haydn than Joseph. Chromatic harmony and theatrical gestures appear strikingly similar between Michael's MH 367 and Mozart's K.465 slow movements. David Wyn Jones notes many features found in Salzburg belong to a lingua franca shared by both Haydns. Despite this debate, many great composers acknowledged their debt to these quartets. Tovey wrote that no single or sextuple opus achieved so much in instrumental music history. The works transformed how composers would write string quartets forever.