Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Allegro
Andante o piu tosto allegretto
Menuetto: Allegro ma non troppo
Vivace assai
String Quartet in C Major, Opus 76 No.3 (Emperor)
Allegro
Poco adagio: cantabile
Menuetto: Allegro
Finale: Presto
String Quartet in B Flat Major, Opus 76 No.4 (Sunrise)
Allegro con spirito
Adagio
Menuetto: Allegro
Finale: Allegro ma non troppo
Joseph Haydn was as prolific as any eighteenth century composer, his
fecundity a matter, in good part, of the nature of his employment and the
length of his life. Born in 1732 in the village of Rohrau, the son of a
wheelwright, he was recruited to the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna
at the age of eight, later earning a living as best he could as a musician in
the capital and making useful acquaintances through his association with
Metastasio, the Court Poet, and the composer Nicola Porpora.
In 1759, after some eight years of teaching and free-lance performance,
whether as violinist or keyboard-player, Haydn found greater security in a
position in the household of Count Morzin as director of music, wintering in
Vienna and spending the summer on the Court's estate in Bohemia, where an
orchestra was available. In 1760 Haydn married the eldest daughter of a
wigmaker, a match that was to bring him no great solace, and by the following
year he had entered the service of Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy as deputy to the
old Kapellmeister Gregor Werner, who had much fault to find with his young colleague.
In 1762 Prince Paul Anton died and was succeeded by his brother Prince
Nikolaus, who concerned himself with the building of the great palace of
Esterhaza. In 1766 Werner died, and Haydn assumed the full duties of
Kapellmeister, spending the larger part of the year at Esterhaza and part of
the winter at Eisenstadt, where his first years of service to the Esterhazy
family had passed.
Haydn's responsibilities at Esterhaza were manifold. As Kapellmeister
he was in full charge of the musicians employed by the Prince, writing music of
all kinds, and directing performances both instrumental and operatic. This busy
if isolated career came to an end with the death of Prince Nikolaus in 1790.
From then onwards Haydn had greater freedom, while continuing to enjoy the
title and emoluments of his position as Kapellmeister to the Prince’s
successors.
Haydn's release from his immediate responsibilities allowed him, in
1791, to accept an invitation to visit London, where he provided music for the
concerts organised by Johann Peter Salomon. His considerable success led to a
second visit in 1794. The following year, at the request of the new Prince
Esterhazy, who had succeeded his elder brother in 1794, he resumed some of his
earlier duties as Kapellmeister, now in Eisenstadt and in Vienna, where he took
up his own residence until his death in 1809.
Haydn was to write some 83 string quartets over a period of forty
years. The form itself is closely associated with that of the classical
symphony as it developed from the middle of the eighteenth century in Mannheim
and elsewhere in south Germany, Austria and Bohemia, emerging from its origins
in the Baroque sonata.
The set of six quartets that Haydn dedicated to Count Erdödy was
completed in 1797 and published two years later. The second, Opus 76 No.2, in
the key of D minor, earned its nickname of Quinten
or Fifths from the widely spaced
descending intervals announced by the first violin in the opening bars, a motif
that is to re-appear. The second movement opens in D major and includes a
modulating central section and an embellished return of the first theme. This
is followed by a movement sometimes known as the Hexenmenuett or Witches'
Minuet, in which the two lower strings imitate the two upper,
contrasted with the ostinato of its D major Trio. The D minor principal theme
of the last movement returns softly in the key of D major and leads forward to
a more rapid conclusion in the same key.
The Quartet in C major,
Opus 76, No.3, has become known as the Kaiserquartett
or Emperor Quartet because of the
theme, Haydn's own Emperor's Hymn,
used as the subject of variations in the second movement. The beginning of the
quartet has a strongly contrapuntal element and provides music of sufficient
proportion to sustain the famous theme and its four variations, in which the
instruments take turns to play the melody itself. The Minuet and Trio provide a moment of relaxation before the C minor drama
of the finale, with its rapid
triplet rhythm, leading to a conclusion in C major.
The fourth quartet of Opus 76, the Quartet
in B Flat major, is generally known as The Sunrise, for no better reason than the suggestion of
dawn as the first violin emerges from the sustained harmony of the other
instruments in the first bars of the work, a process later to be inverted, as
the cello descends, from a harmony provided by the higher instruments of the
quartet. The intensity of the slow movement, in which the first violin adds its
own element of drama, is followed by rapid Minuet
and a strongly felt Trio. The
final rondo, with its varied
episodes, and evidence of the imaginative humour that is so often a feature of
Haydn's music, ends in impressive unanimity.
Kodály Quartet
The members of the Kodály Quartet were trained at the Budapest Ferenc Liszt
Academy, and three of them, the second violin Tamás Szabo, viola-player Gábor
Fias and cellist János Devich, were formerly in the Sebestyén Quartet, which
was awarded the jury's special diploma at the 1966 Geneva International Quartet
Competition and won first prize at the 1968 Leo Weiner Quartet Competition in
Budapest. Since 1970, with the violinist Attila Falvay, the quartet has been
known as the Kodály Quartet, a title adopted with the approval of the Hungarian
Ministry of Culture and Education. The Kodály Quartet has given concerts
throughout Europe, in the Soviet Union and in Japan, in addition to regular
appearances in Hungary both in the concert hall and on television.