# Haydn's Opus 76 Quartets



## Hausmusik

By virtual unanimity Haydn's Opus 76 quartets are classified among the greatest works in the string quartet genre and in the history of chamber music.

While string quartets from throughout Haydn's career enjoy critical and popular esteem, it is in his last dozen or so quartets, and particularly in the Opus 76, that Haydn is said to have really moved the genre away from the _quatuor brillante_ and toward the equality of voices that could allow Goethe to describe the string quartet as "a conversation among four equals." As _The Grove Dictionary of Music _put it, it was in these later quartets that Haydn writes for "the lower parts [with] some of the boldness which had been only allowed to the 1st violin."

These quartets are also extraordinarily creative--comparing just the second movements of each quartet reveals the fertility of Haydn's imagination as he continually tries out new ways to approach the slow movement, from the hymn-like _Adagio sostenuto _of 76/1 to the rustic, folk-song-like _Largo_ of the 76/2 to the theme-and-variations of the "Emperor," etc.

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Anyhow, I was unable to find a thread for the Opus 76 quartets so I thought I'd start one for us to share our thoughts about these great works, both individually and as a set.

For starters, I am wondering if these works repay being thought about or listened to as a unified work in six parts, rather than as six discrete works united under a single opus number.

This question occured to me this afternoon as I listened to all 6 quartets as performed by the Quatuor Mosaiques. For the first time, I noticed that the first movement of the Op. 76/1 and the last movement of the op. 76/3 (the "Emperor" quartet) begin in strikingly similar ways, with three emphatic chords. Because the QM recording orders the quartets so that the album begins with the 76/1 and ends with the final movement 76/3, it creates a striking sense of cyclical structure, as the three chords that begin the recording seem to return, in altered form, for the "final" movement.

Has anybody noticed other thematic continuities across these quartets?

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LINKS: 
Scores here: http://imslp.org/wiki/String_Quartets,_Op.76_(Haydn,_Joseph)

Entire Opus 76 quartets on YouTube, as performed by the Tatrai Quartet:


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## KenOC

I don't see the works as related except in their style, layout, and general approach. Apparent thematic or other references across quartets may be more coincidental than purposeful. I can't think of any example in Haydn where multiple works in an opus have even been discussed as "related." (Now somebody's going to find a counter-example, of course! )

Just a set of six quartets, because six were specified by Count Erdödy. If he'd wanted eight, we'd have eight!


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## clavichorder

No. 1 in G major was a new discovery for me a few months back, and I loved it. Since it is unnamed and not one of the most famous ones, it opened my mind to how Haydn was very consistently inspired at that point in his career.


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## Ramako

This is a tl;dr type of post. For this reason, I am putting the main gist of it in quote below.



> I strongly think that the op. 76 is designed as a unified set of quartets


I agree with Hausmusik that they are intended to be a set of 6. In fact this thought has occurred to me for previous sets of 6 (of course all of them are in sets of 6 apart from op 42 since the sets of three are usually in pairs). In all cases the language is similar but I have wondered whether there may not be an extra amount of intentionality to this... For starters Haydn would want to make all the quartets different enough that people buying the set would be happy about it, each quartet of the set having its own character. The whole set was what people bought. In terms of similarities we have for example the famous claim that the op 33 were "written in an entirely new and special way". Sales pitch or not, this suggests that he was writing them as a unit.

In op. 76 I think there is more evidence in favour of this idea as there are special links between them. If we are to argue that it's not just part of the language then we need evidence for this. I think the following points strongly suggest they were written as a group of 6.

1) The slow movements of op. 76/4 and 6 (in B flat and E flat) open exactly the same. As in EXACTLY. The same three chords with the same spacing - they are just in a different key. This isn't even a particularly central part of his language. This link is so strong that I would be willing to make the connected claim based solely on this. It is hardly likely that Haydn would forget the theme for another movement in a group of 6 quartets he was composing at the time. But there is more.

2) Three of the last movements begin in the minor and end in the major (nos 1, 2 and 3 in G major, D minor and C major). This is not _that_ unusual for a piece in the minor key, but the major it is wholly exceptional. In fact these quartets are the only pieces that I am aware of _ever written_ for which this is the case (Mendelssohn's Italian symphony has a last movement in the minor that also ends in the minor, which is even more exceptional). I can't help but note that these three are numbered 1,2 and 3 too. Hardly likely to be a coincidence.

3) Both quartets no. 5 and 6 (in D and E flat major) begin in Allegretto and end in Allegro, and are in some kind of variation form. This is again a procedure I am unaware of occurring anywhere outside this opus. Often a first movement may have a slow introduction (none in this opus do by the way), but this is entirely different; it is more like an Allegro coda.

4) The point you mentioned about the three chords on nos 1 and 3 is very good - I hadn't noticed it before. This is a more usual part of his language - but the fact that it is only used twice, and indeed in such a manner, suggests that it is intentional. Even if no 3 doesn't end the group (my set has them it third), it is a sort of half-way point. Also, because of the other points, I think now just because it is a normal part of his language doesn't mean it's not connected. Everything is being used to make connections. Such as the following two points (which are weak in themselves).

5) I can't help feeling that the three dramatic chords in 1 and 3 resonate with the three legato chords opening the slow movements of 4 and 6.

6) The chords opening the slow movement of no 2, and the first movement of no 6 are the same. It is quite a distinctive progression, although it proves nothing in itself. I think the case for them being unified is so strong by this point that we should be on the lookout for connections between them and trying to understand why Haydn has done what he has done.

It has always been plain to me that they were designed as a set. I think the others may well be too to a lesser extent. A quick search does not yield any academic articles on the subject however.


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## Hausmusik

Wow, great stuff, Ramako! I'll be pondering these observations when I give the cycle another listen this week.


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## Alydon

I have always found this set of Haydn quartets, as with the others, a very fulfilling listening experience, even though now up in the hundreds. Haydn seems to push the string quartet on in this set of six and although I don't find any particular thematic similarties, I do think he has built a richer structure in this set, even compared to op.71 & op.74.
I couldn't pick a favourite quartet so that in some ways shows how consistant Haydn was in his writing. I have found owning versions from the Pro Arte to the Lindsays and a period version or two lets you get the best out of these original pieces.


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## Ukko

Ramako said:


> It has always been plain to me that they were designed as a set. I think the others may well be too to a lesser extent. A quick search does not yield any academic articles on the subject however.


Good post _Ramako_! I disagree with your conclusion "that they were designed as a set". They were all composed within the same project, and there was - pretty much of necessity - some thematic slop-over. The only 'design' was in the sense of intent; the intent to get them done, delivered and paid for.

That's my opinion, and I'm enamored of it.


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## JCarmel

'When the musician and historian Dr Charles Burney first heard the quartets, in 1799, he wrote to Haydn saying that he had 'never received more pleasure from instrumental music' adding 'they are full of invention, fire, good taste and new effects and seem the production, not of a sublime genius who has written so much and so well recently but one of highly-cultivated talents, who had expended none of his fire before'









To quote the cd notes.


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## jurianbai

from the book String Quartet of Josef Haydn - Floyd & Margareth Grave..

excerpts: p.318
_Issues of Cyclic Integration
The concentration of formal novelty, motivic intrigue, and harmonic daring in
Op. 76 naturally gives rise to questions of cyclic profile: To what extent do a movement's
unsettling deviations from structural or stylistic norms compensate by
nurturing intermovement relationships or other unifying forces? Although the
evidence varies from one work to another, there appear to be sufficient signs of
cyclic cohesion-if not outright unity or structural integration-for us to consider
this factor as part of the opus group's character.

The case for integration in Op. 76/6, for example-easily one of the most
peculiar cycles in the repertory, with radically nonstandard elements in three of
its movements-would seem to be particularly elusive. As in Op. 76/5, the slow
movement comes on the heels of an unusual, end-weighted form and likewise
stands apart by virtue of an unaccountably remote key-to which is now added
the novelty of startling shifts in tonal focus and an utterly unpredictable form.
Nothing about the preceding movement, with its staid adherence to the tonic key
and its close relatives, could be said to foreshadow this turn of events-nothing,
that is, except for its insistent recurrences of the foreign note C as an enigmatic,
passing detail of the opening movement's theme. First heard in the cello just before the cadence in measure 8, it recurs as a melodic inflection in the first violin
in the course of the second reprise (mm. 24-25). In this guise, it insinuates itself
in each of the theme's variations, and it turns out to be the last accidental heard
prior to the end of the movement (mm. 209-10). The sound of B major (C enharmonically
respelled) has thus been slyly prepared by the time the Fantasia
gets under way, and a point of connection between the two seemingly disparate
movements has therefore been drawn. But another palpable source of integration
may be considered as well, one that embraces the entire cycle: an obstinate
and (for Haydn) unusual preoccupation with melodic repetition.27 Manifestations
include the first-movement theme's recurrences as a cantus firmus, the unadorned
restatements in different keys that mark the first part of the Fantasia, the
hypnotically repetitive descending and ascending scales of the third-movement
Alternativo, and in the finale the nearly literal, subdominant transposition of
the primary theme's opening measures, which form a structural milestone in the
latter part of the development section.

Evidence of cyclic coherence proves more abundant in the first three quartets
of the series, with their dramas of transformation from minor to major. In
Op. 76/2, as in previous single-tonic quartets, modal play stands out as an allencompassing
cyclic theme, though the first-movement emphasis on learnedstyle
severity and Sturm und Drang theatrics keeps the tonic major out of the picture.
D major eventually materializes as a quiet, self-effacing presence in the first
section of the ternary Andante but grows into something more formidable in the
extended, varied return, energized by torrents of thirty-second notes, rhetorically
amplified by harmony-sustaining fermatas, and expanded in its upper range
by a whole octave. The dance movement virtually reverses the second movement's
modal scheme, giving pride of place to the D minor canonic minuet and
relegating D major to the trio. But the latter key gains new strength here, not
only by the rough-hewn energy of its D major hammerstrokes (beginning on the
upbeat to m. 43), but also by the attainment of the quartet's highest peak, d4, in
the final measure of the trio. The resurgence of D major in the last movement,
following the change of key signature at measure 180, recapitulates the dynamic
profile of its journey up to this point by starting out quietly, gradually gaining
strength, and finally blossoming in full-volume triplet figuration, unison arpeggiation,
and multiple-stopped harmony. ............. _









http://amzn.to/WMR6Ui


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## Novelette

jurianbai said:


> ...movement's unsettling deviations from structural or stylistic norms


Yes! The Finale of 76/1 in G is unsettling, inasmuch as the coda is almost like a bourée. In fact, it sounds a fair deal like Couperin's Les Nations, 2ème Ordre, "L'Espagnole" - 15. Bourée Gayement Double de la Bourée Précédente. It always catches me off guard.


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