The Cramer Quartet’s season opener, “Springtime in September,” focuses on Haydn’s development and influence on Mozart as a quartet composer. The program features Haydn’s “Sun” Quartet Op. 20 No. 2 as well as Mozart’s “Spring” Quartet K. 387, the first of the “Haydn” Quartets which were dedicated to the elder composer. Written in the span of only ten years, these quartets showcase the radical evolution of the string quartet genre in the late 18th Century.
LOVE, HUMOR, AND DISCOVERY IN CLASSICAL MUSIC
Beethoven called concerts featuring his new music Academies, as in Plato's Academies. Can music really be expected to convey discoveries as concrete and intelligible as those made by science?
Haydn and Mozart loved one another like father and son. Mozart referred to the older man as Papa Haydn, from whom he learned everything. You could not mention Mozart to Haydn, after the former's death, without the older man bursting into tears at the loss of such a dear friend, and great artist. You can hear that love in the musical advances they made, and shared.
During the next two hours, please allow yourself to be removed from the daily noise, and hear these works as though they were brand new. Try to recreate, in your minds, the surprises and discoveries intended by the composers.
1781 to 1782 was an important time. Haydn stated that he had discovered an entirely new method of writing string quartets with his 1781 Op 33. Mozart learned from those six quartets, and in 1782, attended the salon of Baron von Swieten, where he was introduced to the long-forgotten music of J.S. Bach, and Handel. Mozart integrated these two revolutions in music, into a One.
THE NECESSITY OF MOVEMENTS IN A STRING QUARTET
Haydn is reputed to have created the string quartet, and each of the three quartets featured, has four movements: a moderately paced first movement, a quickly paced finale, and in between, a slow movement (Andante or Adagio), and a Minuet (or Scherzo), often switching places. These movements are not mere conventions. They are there for important psychological reasons, and it is crucial to consider them not as four unrelated things, but as a necessary succession, even if that requires a level of concentration way above our current-day culture of constant distraction.
The late Norbert Brainin, leader of the legendary Amadeus Quartet, referred to Haydn's discovery, his new method in Op 33, as "motivfuhrung." There are motives (think of the 4 note opening of Beethoven's fifth: da da da DAH) in the Op. 20 No. 2 quartet to be sure; but Motivfuhrung means leading by motivic development. Professor Brainin compared it to four people having an extended discussion, and everyone sticking to the subject! The four instruments can function much more as equals than in previous quartets, as they pass the motivic ideas back and forth: they are not digressing from the matter at hand, and they all have something to say! Paradoxically, though the work may be more complex, the motivfuhrung allows for a higher degree of coherence than before possible. There are no diversions from the central idea! Not one note is wasted.
It is impossible to identify every connection in program notes for a single performance. We urge you to continue your study of these works on your own. The comparisons we make here, cannot, unfortunately, follow a linear time sequence, so please read in advance.
COMPARISON NUMBER ONE
The first movements of Haydn's Op 20 number 2, and his Op 33 number 1.
One can hear the difference in the first movements of the two Haydn quartets featured today. Op 20 number 2's first movement, might be characterized as expansive, opening with a long, broad theme, and proceeding in a somewhat easy-going manner. Op 33 number 1's first movement, keeps us on the edge of our seats, constantly anticipating what will come next. It seems to open, as if posing a question. More than ever, we hear change as the subject. That change, as an idea, lends the work a quality of integration, of cohesion. Haydn's ability to handle the development section, where the motives are lead through dissonances, and many keys, is increased by an order of magnitude.
INCOMPARABLE MOMENT, NUMBER ONE
It were a mistake though, to regard Haydn's 1771 "Sun" quartets as being in any way pedestrian or inferior. Haydn's genius was always advancing, and the mastery of Italian bel-canto singing that he gained by composing an opera, Le pescatrici, in 1770, is reflected in his subsequent instrumental works. The second, Adagio, movement of Op 20 number 2, combines cantabile (singing) sections with dramatic ones, in a manner that is unique, and unparalleled. The Andante movements of his Op. 33, number 1, and even Mozart's K387, are lightweights, by comparison.
Human beings are unique, and so is genius. Though progress is made, each person, has unique moments that are unsurpassed.
HAYDN'S WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR
Haydn loved practical jokes. He once heard a symphony of his being played at a rich man's mansion. He charged in, dressed like a servant, and started denouncing the music. The wealthy and powerful audience, who adored Haydn, grew quite angry with this upstart, until someone recognized him, and they all had a good laugh.
It is often said that Beethoven revolutionized the Minuet movement, by turning it into the Scherzo, a kind of musical joke. Yet, Haydn seems to have anticipated him. All six of Haydn's Op. 20 quartets feature Minuets, and all six of his Op. 33 feature Scherzi, as either the second or third movement. What is the difference?
COMPARISON NUMBER TWO
The third movement of Op 20, number 2, and the second movement of Op 33 Number 1.
The third movement of Haydn's Op 20 number 2, is a delightful Minuet, that brings a smile to our face, but the second movement of his Op 33 number 1, is a Scherzando that changes so quickly the listener often feels one step behind, like the victims of Haydn's practical jokes. The third movement, an Andante, can seem like a continuation of the Scherzando.
MOZART TAKES UP THE CHALLENGES OF HAYDN AND BACH
Between 1782 and 1785 Mozart composed his Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn. The one featured here in G major, K 387, was the first, composed in 1782. Mozart's 1785 dedication page to Haydn read:
To my dear friend Haydn,
A father who had resolved to send his children out into the great world took it to be his duty to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated Man, especially when the latter by good fortune was at the same time his best Friend. Here they are then, O great Man and dearest Friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor, yet the hope inspired in me by several Friends that it may be at least partly compensated encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me solace one day. You, yourself, dearest friend, told me of your satisfaction with them during your last Visit to this Capital. It is this indulgence above all which urges me to commend them to you and encourages me to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favour. May it therefore please you to receive them kindly and to be their Father, Guide and Friend! From this moment I resign to you all my rights in them, begging you however to look indulgently upon the defects which the partiality of a Father's eye may have concealed from me, and in spite of them to continue in your generous Friendship for him who so greatly values it, in expectation of which I am, with all of my Heart, my dearest Friend, your most Sincere Friend,
W.A. Mozart
After hearing the quartets, Haydn told Mozart's father Leopold:
"Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."
The German word for poetry is Dichtung, meaning condensing, i.e., eliminating redundant words and notes. Again paradoxically, a master can do that, and then expand his poem or song, without a wasted word, or note.
Mozart's movements in K 387 are almost twice as long as Haydn's. Do you have any sense of the unnecessary? His music flows so easily, that one might believe it required no work, though his dedication speaks differently.
Should we assume, that in 1785, the 29 year old Mozart had surpassed the 53 year old Haydn in every way? From this quartet, it might seem so, but Mozart's dedication indicates that he felt he still had something to learn from the old man.
COMPARISON NUMBER THREE
Fugal finales of Haydn op 20, number 2, and Mozart k 387,
The finale of Haydn's op 20, number 2, is titled, Fugue, with 4 subjects. That sounds impressive, and it is, but it is not a fugue in the tradition of Bach, of whom Haydn was unaware, but Italianate in origin. Haydn later abandoned the form. The Finale of Mozart's G major quartet, reflects what he was learning from the study of the fugues of Bach and Handel, combines it with what he learned from his friend and mentor Haydn, and anticipates his later Jupiter Symphony. It makes a rousing end to the concert.
Could it get any better? The 12 year old Beethoven, was listening, and learning.