I noticed something yesterday while playing Opus 77 no. 2 in F major: the opening theme in the first violin part brings to mind the opening unison motive of Beethoven's F major String Quartet, Opus 18, no. 1. The opening of the Beethoven feels (at least to me) like a modernized and condensed answer to Haydn's graceful and gentile opening.
In 1798 and 1799 Prince Lobkowitz (of Vienna) commissioned both Haydn and Beethoven to each write a set of six string quartets, so both composers were at work: one at the end of his career, and one at the beginning of his career.
If you were to just look at the publication information it wouldn't seem possible that Beethoven, under ordinary circumstances, could have known what turned out to be Haydn's last complete string quartet. Haydn's Quartet Opus 77 no. 2 wasn't published until 1802, while the six quartets of Beethoven's Opus 18 were published in 1801. But Vienna was a small town, musically speaking, and the composers shared a patron. It wouldn't be beyond anyone's imagination that Beethoven might have had chance to see, through the good graces of the Prince, the manuscript score of what he believed would have been Haydn's last quartet long before it was published.
The F major Quartet was not the first of the Opus 18 quartets that Beethoven wrote; it was the second. Maybe he put it first in the publication so that his bold opening related-but-opposite F-major opening gesture to that of Haydn could more effectively and more immediately introduce his modernized approach to the string quartet.
Hin ist alle meine Kraft!
Alt und schwach bin ich;
Wenig nur erquicket mich
Scherz und Rebensaft!
Hin ist alle meine Zier!
Meiner Wangen Roth
Ist hinweggeflohn! Der Tod
Klopft an meine Thür!
Unerschreckt mach' ich ihm auf;
Himmel, habe Dank:
Ein harmonischer Gesang
War mein Lebenslauf!
3 comments:
I’ve played these two quarters for years without noticing the similarities of the opening statements. Congratulations for seeing it!
And your surmise about Beethoven placing his later work at the front of the pack makes good sense. A subtle but convivial way for the younger to honor the older!
I’m so pleased that you agree! Sometimes it gets lonely out here in the Haydonsphere, where I fear the wonders that I find are of little interest to musicians who have not played these pieces!
Yes...so many of my old and benighted colleagues would roll their eyes at the Master's name. Their loss. You are right; those with our mutual discernment are few and far between. The loneliness can be a burden, , but there is a reward at the end of the fingerboard: hanging out with inner-voce cognoscenti such as ourselves once in an epoch is more gratifying than hanging out with Ferde Grofé -loving Philistines everyday! (Apologies if you like his work.)
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