# String Quartets: Haydn vs. Mozart



## shangoyal

Take your pick.


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## DaDirkNL

Haydn all the friggin' way!


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## Winterreisender

In my opinion, this is one of the few categories where Haydn edges it. In fact, the Op. 76 Quartets are among my favourite quartets from any composer.


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## Ukko

Ooh, a chance to use a Dubious Simile. Comparing Haydn's and Mozart's string quartets is like comparing the immediate effects of various recreational inhalations. They must be taken in measured doses over an extended time period, and when you are done you still don't know. The quartets are too different, and so are the inhalants.


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## Andolink

I prefer Mozart's piano trios and quartets and string quintets to his string quartets. Haydn's string quartets on the other hand, taken as a whole are, for me, one of the greatest achievements in the history of Western art music.


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## Blake

Haydn for quartets and piano sonatas
Mozart for quintets and piano concertos

Like I said, if Mozart had more time I'm sure this decision wouldn't be so easy. He really started to bloom in his symphonies and quartets just before his death.


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## Alydon

I think we covered a lot of this subject in the recent Mozart v Haydn poll and would have to conclude that here we definitely have an equal win. Haydn's large output is an endless source of inventiveness and poised elegance and always an uplifting experience, but Mozart does (especially in the last four quartets) reach the same level and transcends some of Haydn's musical genius, but to say one is better than the other is really splitting hairs.


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## jurianbai

Mozart has his moment on string quartet, but the quantity is not as much as Haydn has. :tiphat:


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## rockmeoff

Haydn string quartets without question.


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## Mandryka

There's a seriousness about about the Mozart/Haydn quartets, and very subtie, nuanced expression of feelings.


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## hpowders

Mozart's requires more work on the part of the listener. Haydn's are best for "public consumption."

Give me the Mozart string quintets any day over any chamber music by Haydn.


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## Aramis

hpowders said:


> Give me the Mozart string quintets any day over any chamber music by Haydn.


You mean you want me to put Haydn's chamber work recording/score on the ground, you'll stand on the one side of it as it lies there, I on the other side and above it I am supposed to hand you a recording/score of Mozart string quintets? What kind of idea is that? And why do you think anybody would do that after reading your post? If you really need that, try to contact user KV466, he is from Florida too, so he might actually agree to do what you want...


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## Manxfeeder

Another vote for Haydn just from the spin factor. I spin more Haydn quartet disks than Mozart.


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## LancsMan

In general I rate Mozart over Haydn, but I have to give Haydn the string Quartet round (and piano sonatas and other solo piano compositions too).


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## Roi N

Haydn hands down.


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## DebussyDoesDallas

The only Mozart quartets equal to Haydn's are the ones named after... Haydn. So it's Haydn all the way.

Okay, the Mozart's Prussian quartets have their moments too, but so do Haydn's Prussian quartets.


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## Rameau

I voted for Haydn. I enjoy more of Mozart's larger scale compositions than his small works. Anything by Haydn on a small scale easily beats Mozart however Haydn's larger scaled works don't have the same kind of playfulness one can hear or put into a solo or small group that gives his music charm. So therefore on symphonies and other works like that I have to give it to Mozart.


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## Lord Lance

*No competition*

What were you expecting? Haydn is also considered the father of String Quartet. His massive output, the clear evolution in style, the startling variety - its a unique experience if one were to sit through the entire output in one sitting.

Mozart on the other hand - when compared to the master -


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## Ukko

My previous post (#4) could be incomprehensible for the more stolid members. So I will tap in some brass tacks.

There are attitudinal similarities among all of Haydn's SQs, especially after Op. 17. Mozart did not possess those attitudes, so his quartets reveal different ones. The validity of qualitative comparisons, given the obscenely high standards set by both composers, is therefor dubious. Fallacious. Not worth a plugged nickel.

Tap.


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## Lovemylute

Almost a tie for me, but Haydn wins for the sheer joy I get from listening to his quartets.


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## Fugue Meister

For me it was Mozart first but then I grew up and discovered Haydn, the father of the string quartet and ultimately the greater of the two.


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## opus55

Haydn wins by quality and quantity.


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## hpowders

Mozart string quartets bore me, the complete opposite of his fabulous piano concertos.

Haydn's quartets are more interesting, more witty.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

I still need to explore Mozart's quartets. Haydn was my introduction to the quartet world so I doubt I'll find Mozart's quartets to be 'better' but I'm sure they're excellent. I've heard a few and they were very good.


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## trazom

"If Mozart had written nothing but his violin quartets and the Requiem, they alone would have been sufficient to make him immortal."- Haydn


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## PeterF

Haydn's string quartets are among my very favorite classical music. The combination of great quality with huge quantity is quite amazing. I do like Mozart's string quartets too, but for me, Haydn comes out ahead.


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## Alypius

A couple of books which helped me better appreciate both Haydn and the genre of the string quartet. Strongly recommmended:

Robin Stowell, ed.
_The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet_
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003










Floyd Grave & Margaret Grave
_The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn_
New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008










One recent arrival that has a fine discussion of both composers (and lots about string quartets across the board):

James Keller
_Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide_
New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011
Note: This is coming out in paperback in November.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Haydn wins by quality and quantity.

I'll grant you quality... and the fact that Haydn essentially "invented" the form. But "quality"? That is certainly debatable considering Mozart's later quartets... and the question is further blurred if we add Mozart's quintets into the discussion.


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## arapinho1

Can someone recommend to me some string quartets by Mozart ? I am not familiar with them at all


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## Mandryka

arapinho1 said:


> Can someone recommend to me some string quartets by Mozart ? I am not familiar with them at all


Here's my favourite


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## arapinho1

Thank you. I am listening to nothing but Mozart these last couple of days


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## Josquin13

arapinho1,

I'd recommend that you try to hear Mozart's 6 String Quartets dedicated to Haydn (his Quartets nos. 14-19--K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, K. 465), for starters. However, Mozart's final 4 String Quartets are incredible, too, and have some of the most beautiful slow movements ever composed, IMO (nos. 20-23--K. 499, nicknamed the "Hoffmeister" quartet, and the final three, which are called the "Prussian" quartets--K. 575, K. 589, K. 590). Together, these quartets are often referred to as Mozart's "10 Great String Quartets", but there are also 13 quartets that he composed earlier in his life (his "Milanese" & "Viennese" quartets).

My personal favorite is his String Quartet No. 19, titled the "Dissonance", K. 465, from the 6 "Haydn" Quartets; although I love his final 4 quartets, as well. Here are links to three different performances of K. 465--one is played on period instruments that were authentic to Mozart's time, the second is played on modern instruments, and the third is a hybrid of the previous two, played on modern strings with period bows (& you'll be able to hear the differences...):

--On modern instruments (Gewandhaus-Quartett): 



--On period instruments (Quatour Mosaiques): 



--On modern strings, using period bows (Cuarteto Casals): 




Here too is a link to the Gewandhaus Quartet playing K. 575: 




Among Mozart's earliest string quartets, his String Quartet no. 1, K. 80 is wonderful, and my favorite of his "early" quartets. Here it is played by Cuarteto Casals:










In time, if you wish to explore further, I'd also suggest that you check out his 6 String Quintets, as well: Here's a link to a brilliant live performance of his String Quintet in C KV 515 from the Delft Music Festival (played on modern instruments): 



.


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## arapinho1

Thank you very much :tiphat:


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## ArtMusic

Haydn and Mozart are the beat of the best when it comes to SQ. No other composers beat them. So this is all good.


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## tdc

Mozart's for me, I still can't really get interested in Haydn. The poll results on TC that puzzle me the most are seeing Haydn's quartets beating Mozart's and Schubert's quintet beating Mozart's k515 and k516.


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## RogerWaters

Polls like this must be taken with a grain of salt because they don't control for people who haven't listened to both.

Haydn's string quartets are arguably much more famous than Mozarts (which I think most people who had been submerged in both would recognise as better).


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## hammeredklavier

opus55 said:


> Haydn wins by quality and quantity.





Lord Lance said:


> What were you expecting? Haydn is also considered the father of String Quartet. His massive output, the clear evolution in style, the startling variety - its a unique experience if one were to sit through the entire output in one sitting.
> Mozart on the other hand - when compared to the master -


I refuse to acknowledge Joseph Haydn as "the father or the string quartet" or "the father of the symphony". There's evidence his contemporaries wrote stuff (as early as 1773) that had all the "inventive elements" of his Op.20. To be frank, Joseph is exaggerated about his "innovation" and "inventiveness" (Look at stuff like Op.76 No.3; none of his variations is as "quirky" and "dynamic" as Mozart's K.421/iv) and his harmonic style; use of the SATB is, frankly, rather "tame" for the most part. As shown by his liturgical stuff (which does pale compared to his younger brother's; the Nelson mass wouldn't have been this popular if it wasn't written by Joseph.) and the hour-long Op.51.
There are many "myths" about Joseph propagated by H. C. Robbins Landon (ie. "Mozart said that he learned how to write quartets from Joseph Haydn") or Donald Tovey (ie. "Every page of the six quartets of op. 20 is of historic and aesthetic importance... there is perhaps no single or sextuple opus in the history of instrumental music which has achieved so much"). Tovey also made some unreasonable claims about Beethoven's Missa solemnis, not giving Michael Haydn proper credit in both cases. 
To me, Joseph seems to be "the Vivaldi of the Classical period", in terms of the ratio of masterpieces produced vs. music simply "churned out". Look at stuff like Op.33 No.2 "the joke", which is so trivial it's just forgettable. Some people here are not seeing the "naked emperor", like seriously.



hammeredklavier said:


> Michael Haydn wrote his string quintet MH189 in 1773, in Salzburg - 1 year before Joseph (who was already working as a kapellmeister for the Esterhazies) published his Sun quartets (Op.20).
> This impassioned passage (
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> ) of the slow movement from Michael's MH189 seems to anticipate
> Mozart's K.551 (
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> )
> Also look at;
> Michael Haydn string quintet in G, MH 189 (1773) : [ 0:49 ~ 1:06 ]
> Mozart string quartet in E flat, K.428 (1783) : [ 0:49 ~ 1:14 ]
> Some treatment of chromaticism in the minuet (
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> ) and phrases in the finale also remind me of Mozart.
> also look at these sections from MH189 (
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> and Mozart K.533 (
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MH189: 



K.458: 






hammeredklavier said:


> Btw, in Post #144, I was also pointing out that people tend to give a bit to much credit to Joseph for his invention of "formulas and ideas" (while neglecting his contemporaries like his younger brother).
> Listen to Michael's string quintets, MH187, MH189, MH367, MH411, MH412, especially ones he wrote before the publication (1774) of Joseph's Op.20 quartets - MH187, MH189 (1773). I find many elements in Michael's quintets people tend to give only Joseph's Op.20 credit for.
> Also notice the similarities in the openings of Michael's G major, MH189 and Mozart's K.387, and the finales of Michael's 23rd symphony (MH 287) and Mozart's K.387.
> Maybe Mozart intended to outdo Joseph in some moments like the finales of K.464 (monothematicism) and K.590 (phrasing and rhythm), but I still think Michael was just as big a source of inspiration for him as Joseph, if not more. With the C major, MH187, I find the interplay of upper strings in the slow movement and the chromatic fun in the finale memorable.
> http://mrc.hanyang.ac.kr/wp-content/jspm/20/jspm_2006_20_10.pdf#page=4
> "Mozart wrote to his father on 29 March 1783 about the musical gatherings in the apartments of Baron van Swieten: "we love to amuse ourselves with all kind of masters, ancient and modern." So music was the main object of the other of the composers Mozart and his colleagues studied in these sessions is mentioned in the Mozart correspondence by name: Johann Ernst Eberlin, for instance, or Georg Friedrich Handel, or J.S. Bach and his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillip Emmanuel, or *Michael Haydn*."





hammeredklavier said:


> "Mozart connoisseurs and admirers know of course about what is bizarre in the finale of his very last string quartet, K. 590. In its development the harshness of the tone language is particularly unparalleled in the Mozart oeuvre. But the unsettling already starts shortly before the end of the first section: The otherwise so airily sparkling sixteenth notes stall all of a sudden in an almost stranded-like repetitive three-note kink. It is just this spot that Mozart vehemently corrected in his manuscript. The investigation of this correction offers us at hand an analytical key to the understanding of this absolutely special movement.
> This spluttering three-note figure, in itself circular, seized up, as it were, against the meter,
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> _Mm. 122-125, vln 1_​dominates the whole development after its first occurrence and is, of course, heard once again at the end of the movement. Mozart later scrupulously corrected it wherever and in whichever part it appears as well. And indeed, to be specific, its articulation. If in the first draft he had always put sixteenths together in a large legato phrase, then he later corrected the legato (but did not cross it out or erase it in the autograph) by placing under the respective notes the familiar two-note grouping of slurs and staccatos:
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> _Autograph, mm. 122-125, vln 1_​To date I have never encountered any other autograph where Mozart made such a striking, systematic change in the articulation. Notes, yes, dynamics, yes, but articulation over such a long stretch? ..."
> <The charm of the unsettling. A special autograph correction of Mozart's in the finale of the F-major string quartet K. 590>
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> "the fact remains that the "Great Fugue" is "a controlled violence without parallel in music before the twentieth century and anticipated only by Mozart in the C minor fugue for two pianos (K.426)"
> < Opera's Second Death / Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar / P.128 >
> "Mozart later arranged this fugue for strings as well, adding the introductory Adagio, K. 546. The traditional Baroque idiom that is developed in this fugue for two pianos lays great stress on dissonant chromatic semitones and appoggiaturas. The intensity of the fugal writing is startling, foreshadowing the fugal textures in some of Beethoven's later works, such as the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Minor, op.111, which exploits a variant of the same idiom. Beethoven was so taken by this piece, in fact, that he copied out the entire fugue in score."
> < Mozart's Piano Music / William Kinderman / P.46 >


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## Bulldog

tdc said:


> Mozart's for me, I still can't really get interested in Haydn. The poll results on TC that puzzle me the most are seeing Haydn's quartets beating Mozart's and Schubert's quintet beating Mozart's k515 and k516.


I'm not surprised at those results. After all, Haydn is famous for his string quartets, and the Schubert string quintet also has a large following.


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## hammeredklavier

Bulldog said:


> I'm not surprised at those results.


you mean this is actually reasonable?:
https://www.talkclassical.com/solo-and-chamber-music/poll-200-what-greatest-string-quintet.html


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## Bulldog

hammeredklavier said:


> you mean this is actually reasonable?:
> https://www.talkclassical.com/solo-and-chamber-music/poll-200-what-greatest-string-quintet.html


It's factual. Are you ever going to get over that poll?


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## Bruckner Anton

Haydn contributes vastly to the genre and to compositional techniques in general (such as the obligato accompaniment which he invented in SQ op.33). But for me Mozart's "Haydn Quartets" are unparalleled masterpieces before Beethoven.


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## Kreisler jr

I voted about equal although I probably give a slight edge to Haydn because of quantity, but as Mozart didn't reach the age at which Haydn wrote his first great quartets (op.20 at around 40 yo) I don't want to hold that against him. 
Some or most of Mozart's 10 mature quartets are maybe on a larger scale and more dense/elaborate than Haydn's but Haydn does have more variety, I think. Still, I would not want to choose between most of the 10 late Mozart Quartets and the 2 dozen or so of Haydn's best.

I prefer Haydn's piano sonatas and trios surprisingly clearly to Mozart's.

As for Michael Haydn, I had one chamber disc of his with Archibudelli, one of the best HIP ensembles and I think this was among the most boring music I encountered (and I like some of his symphonies quite a bit) and I got rid of it again. I prefer Joseph's op.1 to this, not to start with op.9 and op.20 is on an entirely different level, IMO.


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## Brahmsian Colors

Blake said:


> Haydn for quartets and piano sonatas
> Mozart for quintets and piano concert


Agreed, and I'll take Mozart's "Hoffmeister" String Quartet (#20) and Quartet For Piano and Winds along with me too.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I didn't really want to take my pick, so I voted about equal. I can listen to them both all day long and then Haydn would win, but Mozart is forever #1 for me.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> As for Michael Haydn, I had one chamber disc of his with Archibudelli, one of the best HIP ensembles and I think this was among the most boring music I encountered (and I like some of his symphonies quite a bit) and I got rid of it again. I prefer Joseph's op.1 to this, not to start with op.9 and op.20 is on an entirely different level, IMO.


For goodness' sake, people, open your eyes and see the naked emperor!


hammeredklavier said:


> One thing about Joseph is that even in the compositions he wrote at 40, such as the excessively-praised Op.20 set of string quartets, you find "banalities", which are quite surprising for a composer of his renown, -the sort you wouldn't find in the 40-year old Michael.
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> (13:24 and 14:34)
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> (5:32 and 7:15)
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> This is what puts me off about Joseph a little. Maybe something went wrong in his development and growth as a composer. Maybe to some extent, it hampered him all his life, -maybe it's why he sounds the way I described in [post #291] all his life. Or maybe it's just his musical temperament, I don't know for sure. Try going through their works from their 30s up to 40. (Such as Joseph's stabat mater, Michael's requiem, etc). I don't really feel "chill" in Joseph's use of harmony - he just can't express "passion" with as much fluidity and dynamism as Michael.


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## Bulldog

hammeredklavier said:


> For goodness' sake, people, open your eyes and see the naked emperor!


My eyes are open, and what I see is a guy with an anti-Haydn obsession who keeps quoting himself.


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## fbjim

I actually like HK's Michael Haydn/CPE Bach championing and I feel like it would be even more effective if he actually championed their music rather than repeatedly attempt to prove that Joseph Haydn actually sucked and also Mozart really hated him and only said all those nice things about his music to be police.


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## hammeredklavier

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## Kreisler jr

Unfortunately I gave the Michael Haydn disc away; as I said it was really boring and I have not heard chamber music only by J. Haydn and Mozart but also Richter, Boccherini, Schobert, Kraus and a few more composers active in the 1770s (all of which seemed to have more going for them than that Michael Haydn disc with quintets Perger 105,108,109). 

Michael Haydn wrote nice symphonies (not much more than nice, though, typically like the bottom third of Joseph's I'd say) and I don't know his famous church music (not being very interested in the genre at this time), but this chamber disc did not seem worth the shelf space. As for "passionate" this seems in the ear of the listener. I have heard about 20 symphonies by Michael H and there is not a single movement in there even close to the famous minor mode symhonies by Joseph (such as #39 (a flawed piece, admittedly) 44 or 45). There is also nothing as original and brilliant as already the "matin/midi/soir" symphonies of the early 1960s.

FWIW CPE Bach seems a very different league than M. Haydn. He is passionate, intense and original. But his music is also somewhat short of breath and not as well organized on a larger scale, this is probably why J. Haydn's stylistic fusion of many influences was in turn more influential in the 1780s and later on.


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## hammeredklavier

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