Reprintable only with permission from the author.

Haydn Quartet in D major, opus 20 no. 4

Joseph Haydn’s opus 20 works are often described as the first true masterpieces for the string quartet. There are many reasons for this, mostly having to do with how the composer was becoming ever more daring in his ways of imagining: expressive, formal, coloristic. In the case of opus 20 no. 4, it is the composer’s orchestrational imagination that grabs our attention, especially in the first movement: with this music, he expanded the world’s sense of what a string quartet could represent in its textures, blocks of sound and range of color. At the opening, the quartet is a hushed choir in its lowest register, expressing its sure truths in measured, elegant six-bar sentences. Three times he begins on a D-natural unison, then a fourth utterance starting one step higher on an E-natural, then a concluding fifth statement one step down on a shadowy C-natural. Wise and calm as these seem, they are harboring a suppressed energy, because suddenly brilliant triplets erupt out of the opening rhythms, the quartet’s energy is redefined utterly, and its unity splinters into a glittering, polyphonic back-and-forth. Haydn, never boring in his use of color and texture, has heightened contrasting possibilities to the point where one set of instruments seems to be replaced by another. The unpredictable, exciting alternation of these two energies is central to the movement’s drama. When the time comes for the formal return of the opening music, Haydn instead has us alight on the “wrong” key, G major, and then slips in a side door to find his way back home, the music seeming to scratch its head as it works things out.

The slow movement, a somber and sorrowful theme and variations, returns the string quartet to the more contained and tightly related texture that a listener in the 1770s might have expected: intimate, conversational, warm. The theme itself is simple and balanced, in two repeated sections; but just as one is expecting a four-square symmetry to its design, the ending phrase twists into an ascending extension, lifting the theme’s mood into a plane of more painful eloquence. Three central variations follow: one for the middle two voices, a delicate conversation full of lilting offbeats; one for the cello, showcasing both the instrument’s bel canto register and its lower ranges with groups of traveling arpeggios; and a more nimble triplet variation for the first violin. Finally, and most touchingly, the theme returns in more hushed tones. But the expressive weight of this music is in need of something more than a simple restatement, and the theme extends itself even further than it did at the opening, reaching a climactic chord, then going into an ever darkening tailspin as it seeks closure. There is a sense in this coda of confronting a source of pain or grief which the main part of the movement only alluded to, resulting here in abrupt clashes and moments of near-operatic drama. Finally, the movement concludes with three terse chords: the problem has been addressed, but hardly laid to rest.

The Minuet movement, entitled “alla Zingarese” or “in Gypsy style”, celebrates the jagged, uneven meters that flavor the styles of some Eastern European music. Haydn has his fun with this, completely obscuring the “oom-pah-pah” of the 3/4 meter which would support a normal minuet — instead the feisty cross-rhythms jerk us first one way and then the other, still somehow fetching up in one piece at the final downbeat. By contrast, the middle Trio section is entirely regular and well behaved, with the cello acting as the elegant but pedantic grandfather schooling us on what a correct minuet should sound like. Unperturbed, the unruly main section returns and the grandfather’s precepts go flying out of the window!

Plenty of Gypsy energy follows us into the Finale, a sunny, frolicsome romp. Predominant here is the sheer energy of nimble fiddling and forward kinetic drive, often supported by motoric rhythms in the lower voices. But of course, Haydn being Haydn, the music progress is studded with sudden stops, changes of texture, fake-outs, as in a game of tag when your target dodges out of reach at the last second. One notable moment is a few seconds into the movement, when the quartet makes a mock-ferocious statement in minor unison, only to have the first violin part stick out its tongue with a stuttering chatter in response, and then it’s back to major-key fun. Much later, after lots of excursions and high jinks, the music suddenly is suspended, and a glassy, eerily calm sequence unfolds, a daydream of five seconds in the midst of all this goofing around. Then the music recollects itself and returns to its starting point. Finally, when it has run its course, the story winds down, descending in register and timbre to the hushed tones that opened the first movement, completing the circle.

Note by Misha Amory