String Quartet in F major, opus 77, no 2 – Joseph Haydn
“Masked Harlequin Violinists“ (1944)
________
the Opus 77, no 2, of Haydn is the last
full string quartet of his, his very last
remaining unfinished, the Opus 103,
written in 1803
Haydn died in 1809, the Opus 77, no 2
was composed in 1799, he would’ve
been 67
but by then, he had established the
form that music would take for the
next over two hundred years
call, response, and recapitulation is
the house that Haydn built, and verily
cemented, you can hear it in our own
period’s “Love Me Tender“, for
instance, if you’ll also permit me here
its irresistible elaboration, to today’s
top hits, like my own most recent
favourite such contemporary iteration,
released in 2014, “Photograph“
we could be listening otherwise to
Bach right now, counterpoint,
fugues, intricate, linear music,
however powerfully transcendental,
instead of recurring music, call,
response, as I said, and
recapitulation, something like how
a clock works
but already Haydn is testing the
waters, in the Opus 77, no 2, the
andante, a step up from an adagio,
is in third place, something we
haven’t heard before, and not, to
my mind, especially effective, like
his mixture of tempos in the Opus
54, no 2, which was disconcerting,
however masterfully resolved we
find those to be in this very Opus
77, no 2, notably in the second
movement’s “Minuet, Presto – Trio”,
where the tempo change is nearly
imperceptible
art works on contravention, but
the affronts are to established
conventions, which are very
hard to overturn
watch Haydn here continue to
do just that, for better or for
worse
R ! chard
psst: listen to Bach here, incidentally,
put his largo, or slow movement,
right where he wants to, at the
very top of the bill, does it work,
you tell me, a trivial pursuit,
you’ll ask, I say not, you are
defining your own aesthetic
sensibility, something
profoundly, I think, important,
who it is, with perspective, you
want to be
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