String Quartet no 42 in C major, Opus 54, no 2 – Haydn
by richibi
“The Attributes of Music“ (1770)
___________
meanwhile back at Haydn, some nearly
70 years after Bach’s Partita no 2,
Haydn’s been freed by his sponsor,
Prince Esterházy to sell his
compositions to the highest bidder,
and with the help of the Hungarian
second violinist at the Esterházy
court, finds buyers in Paris
the Opus 54 is therefore associated
with Johann Tost, as well as its
companion Opus 55, and indeed
Haydn’s later Opus 64 for string
quartet is decidedly dedicated to
him
Haydn has been released from not
only contractual obligations, it
seems apparent, in his new, more
experimental phase, but from the
constraints of, verily, courtly music,
this is not dinner music for a coterie
of aristocrats, but demands attention,
Haydn is pulling out his showstoppers,
musical eccentricities, to dazzle the
crowd, pauses in the first movement,
for instance, right off the top, for
drama, of course, and musical
tension
and the second movement sounds
a lot more like a minuet to me
later in the last movement, he
delivers a second, incongruous, I think,
adagio, unusual at this point, the
piece’s traditional cheery farewell,
interrupted by a presto, of all things,
right in the very centre of all that
solemnity, you tell me if that ultimately
works, I thought not, and it ends, on
top with of that, with a whimper
but it opens the way for tempi
prolonging the emotional impact of
the composition, six rhythms instead
of four throughout the work makes
the musical journey longer, more
probing, more episodic, more
narrative, eventually
wait till you hear what Beethoven
does with that
but meanwhile, Haydn doesn’t
disappoint, though you’ll have
heard better, I think, and will,
from him
R ! chard
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