Mozart / Haydn in 1790
by richibi
“Prussian Homage“ (1796)
____________
it’s 1790, a year after the French Revolution,
and both Mozart and Haydn are peddling
their wares, Mozart to the King of Prussia,
Friedrich Wilhelm ll, who’d commissioned
some string quartets, as well as piano
works for his daughter, but wasn’t paying
Mozart off for them, where Haydn with the
help of Johann Tost, was hustling his stuff
in very, of all places, Paris
Haydn’s, incidentally, own Prussian Quartets,
dedicated to the same King of Prussia, were
sold to two different publishers, one in
Vienna, the other in England, commercial
transactions left essentially, for all it might
matter to us, for lawyers, and potentates, I
expect, eventually to have resolved
it is my habit to juxtapose two things always
to be able to see each more critically,
determining my favourite sharpens my
aesthetic pencil, one looks more closely at
what distinguishes one work from the other
therefore Mozart’s String Quartet no 22 in
B flat major, KV 589, up against Haydn’s
no 53 in D major, opus 64, no 5, “The Lark”,
both written in the same year
it’s like comparing apples with oranges,
different fruit from the same nevertheless
genus, my favourite being lichee, so go
figure
it’ll be up to you to find your especially
preferred nutrient
I‘ll just point out a few differences that
immediately set apart these, however
similar, masterpieces for me, Mozart
remains utterly Classical, relying on
the established, by now, conditions of
the string quartet, an entertainment for
nobility, nothing at all controversial,
where Haydn with his soaring notes
for the first violin, followed by
arabesques that define a personal
agony, introduces drama into the
equation, a music that speaks of
sentiment, is pointing already towards
the future, though I suspect he could
never have imagined where, in the
very next generation, Beethoven
would take it
to look back, to look forward, that is
the question, it’s not always an easy
one
but this is where art speaks to us,
reminding us of our tendencies,
defining, truly, eventually, who we
veritably are, according to our
individual choices, preferences,
for better or for worse, rendering
the world an ever effulgent garden
rather than a dour mausoleum
R ! chard
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