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Chamber music without keyboard.

Haydn's chamber music centres on his 68 string quartets, a genre of which he was more nearly the literal ‘father’ than the symphony. (The traditional figure of 83 included the spurious op.3, three genuine early works that are not quartets, op.1 no.5 and op.2 nos.3 and 5, and the Seven Last Words, but omitted the early hII:6, ‘op.0’.) His earlier quartets were composed in three discrete groups separated by long pauses: the ten early works for Baron Fürnberg (in the mid- to late 1750s), opp.9, 17 and 20 (in the years around 1770) and op.33 (1781). Each group offers a different solution to the technical and aesthetic aspects of the genre while cumulatively enlarging the resources of quartet style. The Fürnberg quartets already take the soloistic ensemble for granted, including solo cello without continuo. They belong to the larger class of ensemble divertimentos, with which they share small outward dimensions, prevailing light tone (except in slow movements) and a five-movement pattern, usually fast–minuet–slow–minuet–fast. Even on this small scale, high and subtle art abounds: witness the rhythmic vitality, instrumental dialogue and controlled form of the first movement of op.1 no.1 in B ; the wide-ranging development and free recapitulation in the first movement of op.2 no.4 in F, and the pathos in its slow movement; and the consummate mastery of op.2 nos.1–2.

Opp.9, 17 and 20 established the four-movement form with two outer fast movements, a slow movement and a minuet (although in this period the minuet usually precedes the slow movement). They also – op.20 in particular – established the larger dimensions, higher aesthetic pretensions and greater emotional range that were to characterize the genre from this point onwards. They are important exemplars of Haydn's Sturm und Drang manner: four works are in the minor (op.9 no.4, op.17 no.4, op.20 nos.3 and 5); and nos.2, 5 and 6 from op.20 include fugal finales. Op.20 no.2 exhibits a new degree of cyclic integration with its ‘luxuriantly’ scored opening movement (Tovey, N1929–30), its minor-mode Capriccio slow movement which runs on, attacca, to the minuet (which itself mixes major and minor), and the combined light-serious character of the fugue. Op.17 no.5 and op.20 also expand the resources of quartet texture, as in the opening of op.20 no.2, where the cello has the melody, a violin takes the inner part and the viola executes the bass.

In op.33 these extremes are replaced by smaller outward dimensions, a more intimate tone, fewer extremes of expression, subtlety of instrumentation, wit (as in the ‘Joke’ finale of no.2 in E ) and a newly popular style (e.g. in no.3 in C, the second group of the first movement, the trio and the finale). Haydn now prefers homophonic, periodic themes rather than irregularly shaped or contrapuntal ones; as a corollary, the phrase rhythm is infinitely variable. The slow movements and finales favour ABA and rondo forms rather than sonata form. However, these works are anything other than light or innocent: no.1 in B minor is serious throughout (the understated power of its ambiguous tonal opening has never been surpassed), as are the slow movements of nos.2 and 5. Op.33 has been taken as marking Haydn's achievement of ‘thematische Arbeit’ (the flexible exchange of musical functions and development of the motivic material by all the parts within a primarily homophonic texture); although drastically oversimplified, this notion has had great historiographical influence. These quartets' play with the conventions of genre and musical procedure is of unprecedented sophistication; in thus being ‘music about music’, these quartets were arguably the first modern works.

The appearance of op.33 was the first major event in what was to become the crucial decade for the Viennese string quartet, as Mozart and many other composers joined Haydn in cultivating the genre. Indeed, all the elements of Classical quartet style as it has usually been understood first appeared together in Mozart's set dedicated to Haydn (1782–5). He responded in opp.50, 54/55 and 64 by combining the serious tone and large scale of op.20 with the ‘popular’ aspects and lightly worn learning of op.33. The minuet now almost invariably appears in third position; the slow movements, in ABA, variation or double variation form are more melodic than those in op.33; the finales, usually in sonata or sonata rondo form, are weightier. Haydn's art is no longer always subtle; the opening of op.50 no.1 in B , with its softly pulsating solo cello pedal followed by the dissonant entry of the upper strings high above, is an overt stroke of genius, whose implications he draws out throughout the movement.

Haydn's quartets of the 1790s adopt a demonstratively ‘public’ style (often miscalled ‘orchestral’), usually attributed to his experience in London (op.71/74 was composed for his second visit there); the fireworks for Salomon in the exposition of op.74 no.1 in C are an obvious example of this new style. Without losing his grip on the essentials of quartet style or his sovereign mastery of form, he expands the dimensions still further, incorporating more original themes (the octave leaps in the first movement of op.71 no.2), bolder contrasts, distantly related keys (from G minor to E major in op.74 no.3) etc. Opp.76–7, composed back in Vienna, carry this process still further, to the point of becoming extroverted and at times almost eccentric: see the first movements of op.76 no.2 in D minor, with its obsessive 5ths, and of op.76 no.3 in C, with its exuberant ensemble writing and the gypsy episode in the development, or the almost reckless finales of nos.2, 5 and 6 and op.77. He experimented as well with the organization of the cycle: op.76 nos.1 and 3, though in the major, have finales in the minor (reverting to the major at the end), while nos.5–6 begin with non-sonata movements in moderate tempo (but a fast concluding section), so that the weight of the form rests on their unusual slow movements (the Largo in F of no.5, the tonally wandering Fantasia of no.6).

In his earlier years especially, Haydn composed extensively in other chamber genres. His surviving authenticated ensemble divertimentos (hII) consist of one string quintet (no.2), numerous mixed works including three in nine parts (nos.9, 17 and 20), one each in eight and seven (nos.16 and 8), two sextets for strings and two horns (nos.21–2) and two more for melody instruments (nos.1, 11), as well as at least five works for wind, four sextets (nos.3, 7, 15 and 23) and a tiny piece for two clarinets and two horns (no.14). Most of them exhibit the same five-movement cyclic pattern as the early string quartets, with the difference that contrasts in instrumentation become a basis of style, for example in reduced scorings in trios and slow movements or extended soloistic passages. Although some of the mixed works (nos.1–2, 9, 11 and 20) are among the earliest and are on average the least compelling, the slightly later nos.8, 16–17, and 21–2 are on the same high level as the quartets. The wind band works seem to date from about 1760–61; they are even smaller in scale but unfailingly masterful.

By contrast, the 21 authenticated string trios (hV:1–21, by 1765) are works for connoisseurs in ‘high’ style, difficult for player and listener alike, in a wide range of keys (three in E, one in B, two even in B minor). All are scored for two violins and (presumably) cello except no.8 (violin and viola) and are thus related to the trio sonata tradition, although the first violin dominates more than it participates in dialogue. They are in three movements (except no.7, in two), with a bewildering variety of cyclic patterns; many begin with a slow movement and most include a minuet. The 126 baryton trios (hXI; c1762–75) are similar in that they are music for a (particular) connoisseur and always in three movements with a minuet (except no.97 with seven: ‘fatto per la felicissima nascita di S.Al.S. Prencipe Estorhazi’). Although the baryton takes the leading role, they include much dialogue and ‘thematische Arbeit’; three late works (nos.97, 101 and 114) include fugues. They are intimate music, modest rather than ambitious, with a narrow range of keys (dictated by the baryton's technical limitations); Haydn's ability to fashion genuine art within such restricted conditions is remarkable.

In the middle and late 1770s Haydn's production of chamber music fell off markedly. One last group of baryton works comprises the important octets hX:1–6 (mid-1770s); they are richer in scoring and on a larger scale than the trios. The six violin-viola duets (hVI:1–6) are likewise from the mid-1770s; the violin dominates and the style seems somewhat old-fashioned. The six string trios from the early 1780s (hIV:6–11) and the four flute trios from London (hIV:1–4, 1794–5) are amateurs' music, with small dimensions, simple textures and restriction to two or three movements. By contrast, the eight lyre notturnos for the King of Naples (hII:25–32, 1788–90), of unfailing charm and true ‘chamber’ disposition, offer a wonderful synthesis of play and art.

Haydn, Joseph

Keyboard music.

Haydn's keyboard works comprise solo sonatas (hXVI), trios (hXV) and quartet-divertimentos (hXIV). In 18th-century thought and practice these constituted a single, loosely defined genre, destined primarily for private performance and orientated on the topic of sentiment, seen as the natural expressive mode for music performed solely or primarily by an individual at the keyboard; indeed Haydn often adopted a selfconsciously improvisatory style, especially after 1780. During the 1760s these keyboard works were apparently composed for the harpsichord. The first clear (albeit indirect) evidence of composition for the fortepiano (or possibly clavichord) is found in the highly expressive Sonata no.20 (1771), with mannered dynamic marks. Nevertheless, most works from the 1770s may have been conceived for the harpsichord or neutrally for both instruments. Beginning in the early 1780s, and decisively from the late 1780s on, Haydn composed for the fortepiano. Many of his keyboard works were composed for ladies, whether students in his early years, the Auenbrugger sisters around 1780, or intimates such as Mme Genzinger, Mrs Schroeter and Therese Jansen. The majority are in three movements: either fast–slow–fast, or a fast movement, slow movement and minuet in various permutations. Two-movement works are also common, often slow–fast; numerous slow movements in penultimate position are run on, attacca, to the finale. Even in the 1780s and 90s many works end with an outwardly modest movement such as a Tempo di menuetto, a set of variations or a simple rondo. Neither the two- and three- movement cyclic patterns nor the modest finales were ‘conservative’ or ‘immature’, as has been claimed; they are as finely wrought as quartet finales and exemplify the prevailing generic orientation of intimacy.

Haydn's early keyboard works are both serious and galant. The trios hXV:f1 in F minor and 1 in G minor and the Sonata no.2 in B (with its astonishing Largo) are more intellectually difficult and stylistically uncompromising than all the early quartets and most of the early symphonies; many works are small and unpretentious and were presumably written for students and amateurs. At least 12 weighty connoisseurs' sonatas originated in the late 1760s and early 1770s, including nos.19, 20, 45, 46 and seven lost works. Two sets in mixed style followed, nos.21–6 (1773) and 27–32 (1774–6); they include serious works such as the boldly formed nos.22 in E and 26 in A, the passionate no.32 in B minor and the through-composed no.30 in A, as well as numerous lighter works, especially in the 1774–6 set. In 1780 followed Haydn’s first publication with Artaria, the heterogeneous nos.35–9 and 20, including the ‘easy’ no.35 in C, the virtuoso no.37 in D and the serious no.36 in C minor. The three modestly scaled sonatas nos.40–42 (published 1784) are miracles of popular appeal allied with high art, especially no.40 in G. Except for no.51 in D, for Mrs Schroeter, Haydn's last five sonatas eschew any pretence of modesty. In the late 1780s he composed no.48 in C, with a fantasy-like slow variation movement and a dashing sonata-rondo finale, and the intimate no.49 in E for Mme Genzinger; its brilliant first movement has an unusually long coda and the ABA Adagio is richly expressive, with continual variations of the theme. From London come two virtuoso sonatas for Jansen: nos.50 in C and 52 in E . The former features a remarkable first movement which, though in sonata form, is based on continual variation of a basic motif; the latter is on the largest scale throughout and features a slow movement in the remote key of E major (a tonal relation adumbrated in the development of the first movement and wittily ‘cancelled’ at the beginning of the finale).

Of Haydn’s few keyboard works outside the sonatas, the most important are two capriccios – Acht Sauschneider müssen sein in G (hXVII:1, 1765), a variation rondo with an immense tonal range, and hXVII:4 in C (1789), another tonally wide-ranging work with elements of sonata-rondo form, perhaps stimulated by a Fantasia from C.P.E. Bach’s sixth collection of Clavier-Sonaten … für Kenner und Liebhaber (1787) – and the F minor Variations for piano hXVII:6 (1793), arguably Haydn’s most original and concentrated double-variation movement, with a coda (added in revision) of Beethovenian power.

Haydn's piano trios have been undervalued, in part because of the great distance between their original generic identity and today's conceptions. 18th-century keyboard trios (like violin sonatas) were understood as ‘accompanied sonatas’: the keyboard dominates, the cello mainly doubles the left hand of the piano in a pitch-class sense, and even the violin is generally more accompanimental than soloistic, although it often receives sustained melodies in second themes, slow movements, minuet trios and rondo episodes. Nevertheless the strings are essential, for integration of the texture, tone colour and rhythmic definition. The effort to hear Haydn's 27 late piano trios (hXV:5–31, 1784–96) with 18th-century ears is worth making: after the quartets they comprise his largest and greatest corpus of chamber music. No.12 in E minor (1788–9) has an opening movement of astonishing seriousness with vast expansions towards the end, while the beautiful siciliano slow movement and the ebullient rondo finale are both in E major. No.14 in A (1789–90) includes his first slow movement in a remote key (E major, or VI, adumbrated by B major in the development of the first movement). From London, nos.24–6 (1794–5), dedicated to Schroeter, include no.25 (with the famous ‘Gypsy Rondo’) and no.26 in the special key of F minor: following a concentrated and brooding Allegro and a gorgeous Adagio in F major (identical in substance with the Adagio of Symphony no.102), the minuet-finale is anything other than anticlimactic. It begins dissonantly on a dominant 9th and this instability is maintained throughout: there is no tonic cadence until the very last bar of the A section, just before the double bar, and in the reprise even this cadence is deceptive, leading to a substantial coda. Rosen praises its ‘intimate gravity … a melancholy so intense it is indistinguishable from the tragic’, while Landon conjectures that the work may represent Haydn's farewell to Mrs Schroeter (the key is suggestive). By contrast, nos.27 in C and 29 in E (1795–6), dedicated to Jansen, are difficult and extroverted; no.29 is particularly original in construction, and both have rollicking finales that outdo any earlier ones.

Haydn, Joseph

Haydn's career.

Haydn's career never stimulated a paradigmatic narrative comparable to that of Beethoven's three periods. To be sure, decisive breaks occurred in 1761 (his move to the Esterházy court), 1790 (to London) and 1795 (back to Vienna); the periods 1750–61, 1791–5 and 1795–1802 are distinctive regarding both the conditions of his life and his compositional activity. However, the first and last of these are brief in proportion to his career as a whole and cannot bear the weight that ‘early’ and ‘late’ do in Beethoven's case. Furthermore, in any such reading Haydn's 30 years at the Esterházy court remain a long, uninterpreted ‘middle’. Its only major dividing-points that affected both his life circumstances and his compositional orientation were 1766, when he became full Kapellmeister, 1776, when he became responsible for the court opera, and 1779, when he negotiated his independence as composer of instrumental music. Hence except for 1761–5 the Esterházy years seem best understood in terms of a series of overlapping phases, each defined by different criteria (see §3).

In the 20th century too much was made of the supposedly evolutionary aspects of Haydn's career, in part because of its association with the notion of the rise of ‘Classical style’ (see Classical). This led to a threefold periodization after all, but one modelled mechanically on the traditional interpretation of artists' careers: apprentice – journeyman – master. In Haydn's case this took the form: immaturity/composition within existing style – experimentation/searching for a new style – maturity/‘Classical style’; the last was assumed to be his overriding stylistic ‘goal’, which he finally ‘achieved’. The oldest and most persistent of these interpretations associated Classical style with thematische Arbeit and the string quartets op.33 of 1781. Another proposed a double progression: towards a first highpoint with his Sturm und Drang manner around 1768–72, and a second one with the Paris symphonies and the Seven Last Words of 1785–6. These notions are not facts, however, but constructions, placed in the service of stylistic narratives of the ‘per ardua ad astra’ type, more ideologically focussed and psychologically reassuring than explanatory. To be sure, other things equal, a later work of Haydn will be more complex and concentrated than an earlier one; indeed his music often became ‘more so’ within a single genre over a few brief years; for example the string quartets opp.9, 17 and 20 or the London symphonies. And he certainly experimented compositionally, as is clear from his own account of ‘becoming original’. But even his earliest music was never in any intrinsic sense immature, and he continued to experiment, successfully, throughout his career. From about 1755 on, Haydn's music was technically masterful, generically appropriate and rhetorically convincing; every one of his works is best appreciated today in terms of these three modes of understanding, applied in concert.