Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op.50 No.6 (Hob. III:49, 1787) “The Frog”

Allegro
Poco Adagio
Menuetto:- Allegretto
Finale:- Allegro con spirito

In 1782 Haydn had published a set of six quartets which he claimed to have been composed in “an entirely new and special way”. These Op.33 quartets made a very deep impression on none other than Mozart, and immediately inspired a return to the quartet medium after a gap of nine years (Haydn’s Op.33 were likewise separated from their predecessors by nine years). In February 1785 a party was held at Mozart’s home, during which two of his six new works were played – the ensemble consisted of Haydn and Dittersdorf as violinists, Mozart himself on the viola, and the cellist Vanhal. Afterwards, Haydn said to Leopold Mozart, “I tell you before God, as an honest man, that your son is the greatest composer I know, either personally or by name: he has taste, and moreover the greatest science in composition”. Mozart’s own letter to Haydn, humbly requesting permission to dedicate the quartets to him, is no less touching in its affection and respect. Although many connoisseurs would maintain that in general Mozart’s quartets are less successful than his quintets, and less enjoyable to play or to listen to than those of Haydn, it cannot be denied that the six quartets he inscribed to his mentor do represent in every way a significant advance on the latter’s Op.33.

Yet two years later it would appear that a reciprocal influence had taken effect, in that Haydn’s next set of quartets (the present Op.50) displays many of those attributes that the younger composer had built on from Op.33 – notably an altogether expanded scale and structure, supported by ever more complex textures and sonorities. Yet the credit for the genesis of these magnificent and ground breaking quartets should not go to Mozart alone: Haydn’s own increasing fame had recently been recognised in a number of prestigious commissions – notably from the Concert Spirituel, for whom he produced the six grand and colourful “Paris” symphonies. And let us not forget the famous invitation he had received from Cadiz Cathedral, soon after the Mozart quartet party: the Seven Last Words. As he himself wrote, “The task of producing a succession of seven Adagios, each of which was to last about ten minutes, without wearying the listener, was no easy one”; but who would deny the success with which he triumphed over this demand? He would have been making his quartet reduction of the work (published as Op.51) at about the same time as he was composing Op.50 – which in itself is not so significant as it might seem, since it consists mainly of the original orchestral string parts, with necessary wind solos transferred to the appropriate quartet line (but, it must be said, falling below his usual standards of quartet scoring). Rather, it was the sheer breadth of scale and thematic subtlety of these “Adagios” which, together with the experience of the “Paris” symphonies, would appear to have left their mark on the new “Prussian” quartets – evidence here of yet further connection with Mozart, whose last three quartets were also written for the cello playing King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II.

And it is the D major (No.6) which soon strikes us as being the most large scale and ambitious of them all, at once stretching the medium to symphonic proportions, yet at the same time bringing a level of intricacy (and intrigue!) to his monothematic sonata technique – which at that stage had rarely been achieved in his actual symphonies. Who would guess that the opening violin motif – which at first seems little more than a preamble to the serious business which begins in bar 4 – would prove to be the driving source of the entire movement, generating a dense conflict in the development section which borders on ferocity? This complex passage is mirrored in the finale – which even manages to quote the original motif itself. Earlier devotees of this fantastic movement would doubtless have been even more struck by the violinist composer’s cleverness, if the quartet’s nickname is anything to go by: the technique of playing the same note on two adjacent strings (as at the very beginning) obviously reminded someone of the croaking of a clammy amphibian…! Before this comes a characteristically quirky minuet, but the stature of the work as a whole is crowned by an Adagio which inhabits darkly dramatic regions – music which would sit just as comfortably in a symphony or opera seria. After such a glorious espousal of the art of quartet writing, where would his imagination and genius take him next?

© Alan George
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