String Quartets, Op. 33 (Haydn)
On Christmas Day, 1781, at a Viennese apartment belonging to the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, a small audience gathered to hear something they had never quite encountered before. Joseph Haydn had spent the summer and autumn of that year writing six string quartets, and what they heard that evening represented a composer publicly announcing that he had reinvented himself. These were the Op. 33 quartets. They would come to be known as the "Russian" quartets, earn a set of vivid nicknames, and set in motion a chain of influence that reached all the way to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What made them so different? And what exactly did Haydn mean when he told his publisher that these pieces were "a new and entirely special kind"?
Haydn wrote the Op. 33 quartets for Artaria, a Viennese publishing house, and dedicated the set to Grand Duke Paul of Russia. That dedication gave the quartets their most enduring collective nickname. Many of the six pieces, possibly all of them, received their premiere at the Viennese apartment of the Grand Duke's wife, the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, on Christmas Day, 1781. The aristocratic connection was not merely ceremonial. Dedicating a work to a high-ranking patron shaped how it circulated, who heard it first, and how seriously it was taken. The circumstances of that Christmas premiere placed these quartets at the center of Viennese musical life at a pivotal moment.
Opus 33 No. 2, in E major, carries the nickname "The Joke," and the fourth movement makes clear why Haydn earned it. The movement unfolds in rondo form, a structure that had grown enormously popular with audiences at the time, and Haydn described his embrace of it with evident pride in a letter to Artaria. The rondo traces an ABACA shape, always returning to the tonic in the refrain, moving through A major and F minor before settling. The first refrain runs from measure 1 to 35; the second episode introduces new thematic material at measure 107. Then, near the close, Haydn springs the trap. A grand pause makes the audience believe the piece has ended. A sudden forte sixteenth note shocks them back to attention. The first violin then plays the opening theme again, but rests interrupt the music every two bars, and those rests grow progressively longer, mimicking the feel of an ending again and again. The piece finally stops on a soft, abrupt repeat of half the opening phrase, leaving everything hanging unresolved. The fourth movement also marks Haydn's first documented shift away from the minuet toward the lighter scherzo character.
Opus 33 No. 3, in C major, owes its nickname "The Bird" to a single compositional choice in the first movement. Haydn had the first violin open with a melody built from repeated notes, then inserted grace notes between those repetitions, producing what listeners heard as a birdlike quality. It is a small gesture with a large effect. Opus 33 No. 5, in G major, takes its name "How Do You Do" from an equally precise detail. The opening movement begins and ends with the same rising four-note cadence. When that cadence returns at the end, Haydn repeats it deliberately, so that the listener hears it as a farewell rather than another statement of the theme. The second movement of that same quartet is an aria for the first violin in G minor, carried over a steady accompaniment from the other three instruments. Haydn drew that melody close to the oboe theme from the arioso "Che puro ciel" in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, a work Haydn had himself directed at Eszterháza in 1778. The movement also contains what amounts to an accompanied written-out cadenza, running from measure 41 to 50, before closing on a unison pizzicato G.
Opus 33 No. 1, in B minor, bears a curious opening trick: the first movement begins as though it is in D major before settling into its true home key of B minor. Haydn would return to B minor much later with Op. 64 No. 2, making the earlier quartet feel like a study for what came after. Opus 33 No. 4, in B major, carries no distinctive nickname. Opus 33 No. 6, in D major, closes the set with a finale in double variation form, alternating themes in D major and D minor through an A B A1 B1 A2 pattern. Each of the six quartets carries multiple numbering systems: the Hoboken catalogue designations run from III:37 through III:42, the FHE numbers from 70 through 75, and a third numbering scheme assigns them No. 29 through No. 34 in varying order. The overlapping systems reflect how thoroughly these works were copied, catalogued, and studied across generations.
Some scholars have argued that the "Russian" quartets directly inspired Mozart to write his own set of six string quartets, which he dedicated to Haydn. The argument carries intuitive weight: Haydn had publicly claimed a new style, Mozart heard the works, and the result was one of the most famous dedications in chamber music history. No direct evidence has been found to confirm the causal link, however. What the record does confirm is that Haydn told Artaria the Op. 33 quartets were "a new and entirely special kind." Whether Mozart read that letter or simply heard the music, the Op. 33 set was circulating in Viennese musical culture at exactly the moment when Mozart turned his attention to the string quartet.
Common questions
What are Haydn's Op. 33 String Quartets and why are they called the Russian quartets?
Haydn's Op. 33 String Quartets are a set of six chamber works written in the summer and autumn of 1781. They are called the "Russian" quartets because Haydn dedicated them to Grand Duke Paul of Russia, and many were premiered on Christmas Day, 1781, at the Viennese apartment of the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna.
What is the joke in Haydn's String Quartet Op. 33 No. 2?
The joke in Op. 33 No. 2 ("The Joke") occurs at the end of the fourth movement. A grand pause tricks the audience into thinking the piece has ended; a sudden forte note then shocks them, and the first violin restates the opening theme with progressively longer rests between phrases, creating repeated false endings before the music stops abruptly on a soft, incomplete phrase.
Why is Haydn's Op. 33 No. 3 called The Bird Quartet?
Op. 33 No. 3 in C major is nicknamed "The Bird" because the first movement opens with a first-violin melody built from repeated notes with grace notes inserted between them, producing what listeners described as a birdlike quality.
Did Haydn's Op. 33 quartets influence Mozart?
Some scholars believe the Op. 33 quartets inspired Mozart's own set of six string quartets, which Mozart dedicated to Haydn. No direct evidence has been found to confirm this, but the Op. 33 works were circulating in Viennese musical life at the time Mozart wrote his quartets.
What did Haydn say about the Op. 33 String Quartets in his letter to Artaria?
In a letter to the Viennese publisher Artaria, Haydn described the Op. 33 quartets as "a new and entirely special kind." The letter is one of the few direct statements Haydn left about what distinguished this set from his earlier chamber works.
When were Haydn's Op. 33 String Quartets first performed?
Many of the Op. 33 quartets, possibly all six, were premiered on Christmas Day, 1781, at the Viennese apartment of the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, wife of Grand Duke Paul of Russia.