Quartet in B flat major, Op.76/4 "Sunrise"
Allegro con spirito
Adagio
Menuet: Allegro
Finale: Allegro ma non troppo
In recent years, the traditional view of Haydn has undergone a radical re-appraisal. Biographical research has shown him to have been a progressive and sophisticated thinker, a freemason and the owner of a library of banned philosophical texts. It’s far from the traditional image of the benign old "Papa Haydn", but, to those who know his music, shouldn’t really have come as such of a surprise. His long creative life was one of the most inventive careers in the history of art. As well as revolutionising the symphony and sonata, he effectively created an entire art form – the String Quartet. As the violinist Hans Keller writes "so far as the art of string quartet writing is concerned, he was not only the first, but actually turned what seemed an unpromising medium into what was to become the most expressive form of western instrumental composition – and it became that in his own hands too!"
Haydn’s Opus 76 is a set of six string quartets written between 1796 and 1799 and dedicated to Count Joseph Erdödy. It is the culmination of the classical string quartet and of the numerous phases in Haydn’s artistic development. Of the set, Nos. 2, 3and 4, the three "named" quartets, are amongst the most popular of all string quartets, and of these, none demonstrates better than the "Sunrise" the originality and breadth of Haydn’s mature imagination. The quartet takes its name from the long, ascending melody at the very opening of the work. It sounds so effortless and natural that the comparison with a sunrise suggested itself easily to the work’s earliest listeners; but for relevant musical comparisons we have to look a quarter-century ahead to Mendelssohn’s Octet (1825) before we find a symphonic opening of such breadth. That the second subject is simply this opening theme turned upside down is a splendid example of Haydn’s economy of means. The second movement, Adagio is one of Haydn’s great hymn-like late slow movements; a gentle sextuplet-figure brings poignancy to the central and closing sections of this profound meditation. The menuet, as so often in late Haydn, is more a scherzo than a courtly dance, and this one has more than a hint of waltz-rhythm about it. The trio evokes the pungent harmonies of Haydn’s native Hungary. The quartet concludes with a brief but thoroughly worked sonata finale; itself rounded off by an unusually lengthy coda which actually increases in inventiveness as the final bar approaches.
R.Bratby 1999
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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