# Quartets, Haydn vs. Beethoven?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Looking for knowledge here: Beethoven and Haydn both received commissions for string quartets from Prince Lobkowitz. Beethoven's six quartets appeared as Op. 18 in 1800-1801. Haydn's Op. 77 appeared just a few months later, in early 1802. But there were only two quartets, as opposed to at least three and probably six that were expected!

Question: Why did Haydn truncate his efforts? I read somewhere that he was discouraged by the reception given Beethoven's Op. 18 in Vienna. Is this true? Can anybody cast light on this?


----------



## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Bump. This ought to be a revelation.


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Discouraged by Beethoven's op. 18? That sounds unlikely, and I don't know which way it would influence him anyway.

From what I am aware, he never completed it because he was getting too old. What we now have as op. 103 (the incomplete one) was going to be the third of the set of op. 77 I believe. However obviously he never finished it. He decided to send the two complete ones instead.

Interestingly, it is the inner movements which are complete of op. 103, perhaps showing that Haydn found the outer movements harder to write, which I think implies that he put more effort (of a kind) into them. This is perhaps not surprising. He complained in old age that the strain of composition was too much for his nerves.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ramako said:


> From what I am aware, he never completed it because he was getting too old. What we now have as op. 103 (the incomplete one) was going to be the third of the set of op. 77 I believe. However obviously he never finished it. He decided to send the two complete ones instead.


Per Wiki's dates at least, Haydn wrote The Seasons after the two quartets of Op. 77, so he was hardly too old to write a third quartet. The try at Op. 103 came a couple of years later.


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Per Wiki's dates at least, Haydn wrote The Seasons after the two quartets of Op. 77, so he was hardly too old to write a third quartet. The try at Op. 103 came a couple of years later.


Um no? Seasons was definitely before 1800. I will do some research and edit this post in a moment, possibly erasing embarrassingly wrong information!

EDIT: Ok I seem to have been wrong about the seasons... Still, I think that it was something like that. According to wiki, op. 77 was 1799 anyway. I read somewhere more reliable than wiki that op. 103 was going to be part of op 77 originally, but my memory could be failing me. Anyway, if we believe op. 77 was composed in 1799, its unlikely that Beethoven's op. 18 affected it.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If your memory is failing you, don't feel alone! My memory says that the Op. 18 were published in two groups of 3 a few months apart, in 1800 and 1801, and the two quartets of Op. 77 in 1802 (after The Seasons and contradicting Wiki). So that would put the Op. 77 after the Op. 18, which supports your memory though not Wiki. It also places the Op. 103 VERY shortly after the Op. 77, so you could well be right about the reason for Haydn abandoning the project. Unless Wiki is right and we're both wrong...


----------



## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

There could've been several factors why the last set of String Quartets weren't finished. The successes of The Creation and Op. 76 String Quartets. The commission for The Seasons, which took two years to complete (1799 - 1801). The composer's dodgy health. The composer's newfound patience with composing.

Re the unfinished set, I think there's enough evidence with what was completed, that Haydn was still on top of his game, and had some new things to say. Some have suggested influence later heard in LvB, Schubert, and Mendelssohn.

FWIW, I've read that Haydn may have known about what LvB was working on (Op. 18), but not much chance for the reverse.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Here's a view on both issues: "The most curious (and unanswered) question regarding this historical moment is whether they knew of each other's latest work. There is evidence to suggest that Haydn may have heard a performance of some of Beethoven's Op. 18 quartets as he was in the midst of working on the Op. 77 set. Some have even speculated that Haydn thereby stopped composing quartets, essentially bowing out of the competition with this new young composer from Bonn. Others suggest that Haydn was busy, tired and possibly ill. Either way, it is a mystery why Op. 77 contains only two quartets rather than Haydn's characteristic grouping of three or six to a set."

From earsense.org, written by Kai Christiansen


----------



## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

KenOC, the lacunae have always bothered me too. I always attributed it to Haydn's ill health and focus upon the larger works of those late years.

Totally speculation, but I wonder whether Haydn would have been inclined to have terminated his string quartet writing in the face of bolder works of Beethoven. It seems contrary to his temperament, being usually confident in his own music and genuinely celebrating the greatness of his younger composers' music. Haydn openly acknowledged that his brother, Michael Haydn, was a far greater composer of sacred music than he [a disputable claim, I think], yet such a feeling did not stop him from writing masses later in life. True, he was contracted to composer those masses, but I think that if he were inclined to this kind of discouragement, then he wouldn't have contracted to composer those late masses.

Haydn also embraced Mozart's greater skill in opera writing, although Haydn did not give up on his own efforts. Maybe I'm reading too much into those things? If Wiki is correct that Haydn was experiencing bouts of depression, uncharacteristic of him, and illness then perhaps his temperament changed and he became reluctant to continue on in the face of bolder works?

It's all very interesting.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Well, my crazy theory of the day (not the only one) is that Haydn developed sleep apnea. It's very common and he was about the right age. And his symptoms were right too. He said that he had plenty of ideas running through his head, but that he simply couldn't start or pursue a project. He hung on for several years like this. In those days, of course, sleep apnea wasn't a recognized condition -- it can only be diagnosed for sure by an overnight sleep test called a polysomnogram, or "sleep study". Easy now to treat too, usually with a CPAP machine. But Haydn would have had nowhere to plug it in!


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT Haydn quartets are better!

And the reason not to compose Op.77 with as many quartets as previous opuses is old age and illness. Like Dvorak almost composed nothing after 1900 till 1904 (his death).


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I agree that Haydn would be unlikely to bow out on seeing the op. 18 quartets. It is a more reasonable claim than the laughable idea that he was jealous of Beethoven's op. 1 piano trio in c minor which was why he advised Beethoven not to publish it. This is only a view possible with hindsight. Still, I don't think that even this is a likely idea, and here are two reasons why, though they have been hinted at above:

1) Haydn had written better quartets than Beethoven's op. 18 (and certainly better piano trios than Beethoven's op. 1). Even if some dispute this claim, it seems likely that Haydn would have been of this opinion, which is what matters really anyway.

2) Even if he did think them better than his own work, Haydn had kept composing after seeing such immortal masterpieces as Don Giovanni, The Marraige of Figaro, the D minor Requiem, the quartets (which Haydn thought very highly of - possibly better than his own works, and almost certainly better than Beethoven's) and other pieces by his younger contemporary Mozart which are miles better than anything Beethoven had composed while Haydn was still active, and Haydn certainly would have been of this opinion. We know how much he adored Mozart's music. Still he kept on writing music.


----------



## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

I must especially agree, although it's off-topic, that Haydn's piano trios are infinitely better than Beethoven's!

Haydn was an exceptionally versatile composer, and his inventiveness never ceases to amaze me.

Beethoven only thought that Haydn was jealous if his C Minor piano trio, which was a reaction to which Beethoven was accustomed in the face of any criticism. By all accounts, Haydn genuinely celebrated the successes of his pupils, and rather like Faure, was a charitable and amicable man. I suspect that Haydn was confident of his own genius, even in the face of Mozart and Beethoven; he still had many musical ideas, and probably saw no reason to stop what he spent his entire life doing.

I don't know if I could saw that Haydn's string quartets are better than Beethoven's, as a bloc. But let us never deny Haydn's laurels.


----------

