Haydn – String Quartets

... D major, op 64 no 5 (“Lark”); D minor, op 42; D major, op 76 no 5

When I first started listening to classical music, I didn’t bother with Haydn at all. Symphonies were everything, and Beethoven was king. The fact that Haydn was the most important influence on Beethoven’s symphonies didn’t matter. Why look at the first draft when you’ve got the final version?

I only started listening to Haydn much later when I started listening to chamber music. This live recording by the Lindsay Quartet was the first Haydn record I had: I fell in love with all three of these quartets, but especially the Lark. Listening to it again after all these years, it feels as if I still know it like the back of my hand, but all the same there are things I missed, or at least wasn’t quite as conscious of, before. For example, the syncopation in the first movement, and the dark(ish) trio in the third.

It is probably better to listen to these three quartets in the order in which they were written, because coming after op 64 no 5, the op 42 quartet seems almost ordinary, which shows how far Haydn had come in the 5 years between the two works. With op 64 no 5 there is this feeling of compression – one wonders how on earth Haydn packed all these ideas into a work 17 minutes long – which isn’t quite present in the earlier work.

The first movement of op 76 no 5 is amazing: who would have guessed from the slightly wistful sedateness of the first few bars that it would end so passionately? And the space and emotional depth of the slow movement.

Listening to these quartets makes me want to listen to more.