Fame and Fortune versus Loyalty

Donald Macleod's survey of Haydn's string quartets finds the composer on a return visit to London. In the 1794 concert season, to a packed Hanover Square Rooms' audience, Haydn presented the premiere of the second of his op 74 quartets.

From his opus 0 and opus 1 of the 1750s to his unfinished opus 103 of 1803, Haydn’s 68 string quartets span the major part of his compositional life. While he wasn’t the inventor of the form, he’s fully deserving of the epithet, the “father of the string quartet” as he elevated the form to new heights. It’s his ideas that take the quartet from its 18th century antecedents to the conventions that are rather more familiar to us today. The conversational textures he created redefined the relationship between the four instruments. Always aware of his surroundings, and other musical influences, he used ideas and rhythms from folk music, dance, opera, the instrumental concerto and other genres for larger forces. He established a sequence of movements, and within them, adapted sonata form, as well as making use of the minuet-trio, the variation, the rondo and fugue forms. Original, serious, yet with his trademark, irresistible humour never too far away, Haydn’s quartets make up a unique body of work that justly receive both admiration and appreciation.

Across the week Donald Macleod enjoys a masterclass in string quartet writing from one of the great masters of the form. His survey of Haydn includes complete performances of opus 50 no 4 - a quartet written for a King in the grandest of styles, the brilliant and theatrically inspired op 64, no 2, and the spritely and playful Lark Quartet. The versatile composer produced opus 71 no 2 with the largest of concert spaces in mind, and the series concludes with the second of Haydn’s opus 76 quartets, the last complete set he wrote, and widely regarded as being among the supreme accomplishments of his career.

He was feted and adored, a free agent earning more money that he had done in his entire life, but when Haydn was asked to return home by his employer, Prince Nikolaus II it seems a difficult decision would need to be made.

3 German dances IX:12 - version for 3 part string orchestra (excerpt)
I musici de Montreal
Yuri Turovsky, conductor

String Quartet in C, no 72, opus 74 no 1
II: Andantino grazioso
Aeolian Quartet

Symphony no 99
I: Adagio – vivace assai
Les musiciens du Louvre
Marc Minkowski, director

String Quartet, Op. 71 No. 2 in D major
Maxwell String Quartet

Piano Sonata in E flat major, Hob XVI:49 (written 1789, pub 1790)
II. Adagio e cantabile
Paul Lewis, piano

String Quartet no 59 in D major op 74 no 3 (Rider)
IV: Finale – Allegro con brio
Kodaly Quartet