The Chronology of Haydn's String Quartets Author(s): James Webster Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 17-46 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741682 . Accessed: 18/01/2015 15:41 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 69.88.161.32 on Sun, 18 Jan 2015 15:41:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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The Chronology of Haydn's String QuartetsAuthor(s): James WebsterSource: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 17-46Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741682 .
Accessed: 18/01/2015 15:41
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.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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A s far as we know, Joseph Haydn wrote sixty-eight string quartets. The traditional collection (of eighty-three) has not withstood
the intensive source-critical study of Haydn's music, pioneered by Jens Peter Larsen in the 1930s and culminating in the new collected edition, now half complete.' To that traditional list we may add Hob. 11:6, known as "Opus 0"; but we must delete the symphony Hob. I: 107, erroneously included in "Opus 1" (as No. 5), and the two sextets with horns Hob. 11:21 and 22, erroneously included in
"Opus 2" (as Nos. 3 and 5); and we must also bid farewell to the spurious "Opus 3," very probably from the dilettantish pen of Pater Romanus Hoffstetter (1742-1815). Finally, the "eighty-three" included Haydn's quartet arrangements of the Seven Words; but since the nine individual movements, all written for orchestra, make no pretense of belonging to the genre, there is no reason to count them among the quartets proper.2 The sixty-eight authentic quartets
1 Larsen, Die Haydn-Uberlieferung (Copenhagen, 1939); H. C. Robbins Landon, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn (London, 1955); Georg Feder, "Die Oberlieferung und Verbreitung der handschriftlichen Quellen zu Haydns Werken," Haydn-Studien, I (1965-67), 3-42 (Eng. trans. in Haydn Yearbook, IV [1968], 102-39); Anthony van Hoboken, Joseph Haydn: Thematisches-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1957-72; reference throughout this study is to Vol. I); Joseph Haydn: Werke, edited by the Joseph Haydn-Institut (Cologne), under the direction of, first, Larsen and, since 1960, Feder (Munich and Duisberg, 1958-); hereafter abbreviated JHW. I thank Dr. Feder and his colleagues at the Haydn-Institut for generous material and professional aid in the preparation of this study.
2"Opus 0," ed. Marian M. Scott (Oxford, 1932); on the earliest quartets, now available in JHW XII/1, see also Landon, "On Haydn's Quartets of Opera 1 and 2," The Music Review, XIII (1952), 181-86. On "Opus 3" and Hoffstetter, see LAszl6 Somfai, "Zur Echtheitsfrage des Haydn'schen 'Opus 3,' " Haydn Yearbook, III (1965), 155-63; Alan Tyson and Robbins Landon, "Who Composed Haydn's Opus 3?" Musical Times, CV (1964), 505-6; Hubert Unverricht, Die beiden Hofstetter (Mainz, 1968),
17
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are listed in Table I, together with their traditional opus numbers, the numbers in Hoboken's catalogue, and, most important, the authentic sources which prove that Haydn wrote them.3 (In Table I as in the text, the traditional opus numbers are used except where confusion could arise; but "Opus 0," "Opus 1," and "Opus 2" are placed in quotation marks to signal that Haydn did not so compose or distribute his early quartets.) It is highly improbable that Haydn wrote any other quartets; every remaining work attributed to him fails both relevant tests, of documentary testimony and of stylistic plausibility. With the exception of two works which he just possibly wrote in 1784, for a Spanish commission (but of which all trace has
disappeared), the sources as we know them very probably register every quartet he wrote. The search for "lost" quartets is over.4
The dating of Haydn's music has engaged musical scholarship since the early nineteenth century.5 For the quartets, this task is considerably eased by Haydn's practice, characteristic of the eight- eenth century, of composing and publishing them in coherent
pp. 12-15; Feder, "Aus Roman Hoffstetters Briefen," Haydn-Studien, I (1965-67), 198-201. On the Seven Words, see Adolf Sandberger, "Zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Haydn's 'Sieben Worten des Erl6sers am Kreuze,' " in Ausgewdhlte Aufsdtze zur Musik- geschichte, I (Munich, 1921), 266-81; JHW, IV (Unverricht).
3Table I summarizes a documentary study of Haydn's string quartets in James Webster, "The Bass Part in Joseph Haydn's String Quartets and in Austrian Chamber Music, 1750-1780" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton, 1973), pp. 209-49. This list of sixty-eight quartets agrees exactly with the ones developed independently by Somfai, "A klas- szikus kvartetthangzas megsiiletese Haydn von6sn6gyeseiben," Zenetudomdnyi Tanul-
mdnyok, VIII, titled Haydn-Emlnke're (Budapest, 1960), pp. 295-420; and at the Haydn-Institut. Cf. JHW, XII/1, foreword; Riemann-Musiklexikon, 12th ed., Supple- mentary Vol. I (Mainz, 1973), p. 500, col. 1. (Hoboken perpetuates the outmoded "eighty-three," and many of the sources cited here are unknown to him or not identi- fied as authentic.)
4 On this conservative approach to problems of attribution, see Larsen, Die Haydn- Uberlieferung, pp. 9-20, 139, 147-51, 293-94; and idem, "tber Echtheitsprobleme in der Musik der Klassik," Die Musikforschung, XXV (1972), 4-16. Feder provides an ex- haustive discussion of every spurious quartet attributed to Haydn in Haydn-Studien, 111/2 (1974), 125-50. On the hypothetical Spanish quartets of 1784, cf. p. 28 and note 20, below.
5 See Larsen, Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, chap. 5; Landon, Symphonies, chap. 3; Feder, "Zur Datierung Haydnscher Werke," in Anthony van Hoboken: Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag (Mainz, 1962), pp. 50-54; Larsen, "Probleme der chronologischen Ordnung von Haydns Sinfonien," in Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch zum 80. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1963), 90-104; Feder, "Probleme einer Neuordnung der Klaviersonaten
Haydns," in Festschrift Friedrich Blume zum 70. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1963), pp. 92- 103; Sonja Gerlach, "Die chronologische Ordnung von Haydns Sinfonien zwischen 1774 und 1782," Haydn-Studien, II (1969-70), 34-66.
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groups of three or six. Because each opus took as long as six months to compose, it is easy to determine at least its year of composition and, hence, the relative chronology of the various opera. On the other hand, since Haydn's autographs normally are dated only with the year of composition, and his catalogues (unlike Mozart's) do not date his works at all, and since documentation, when it exists, normally relates only to the act of publication, it is not always pos- sible to establish precise dates of composition. Furthermore, the order in which Haydn composed the individual quartets within a given set nearly always remains hypothetical. Whether for aesthetic reasons on a composer's part or for commercial reasons on a pub- lisher's, the order of composition may differ from the order in a printed edition. For example, of the two different authentic order- ings of the "Paris" symphonies (Hob. 1:82-87), neither can be shown to reflect their order of composition (about which a good deal is known). Similarly Mozart placed the third of his six quartets dedi- cated to Haydn (K. 428) in fourth position within Artaria's au- thentic edition, the fourth (K. 458) in third position. By the same token, Haydn completed the "sixth" quartet in Opus 50, pre- sumably No. 6, in D, two months before the "fifth," presumably No. 5, in F.6 And although the "correct" order within each opus is certainly an important aesthetic issue, it cannot affect the larger historical account which is our principal subject here. Our primary task will be to date each set as precisely as possible.
Opera 17, 20, 64, 71/174, and 77 can be dated to the year on the basis of the autographs. The autograph of Opus 17, a single manu- script of forty-seven leaves, is dated 1771. The autographs of Opus 20, on the other hand, initiate Haydn's invariable later practice of writing six separate but uniform manuscripts; all six bear the auto- graph date 1772. (The consistency of format, the uniform date, and the single entry for Opus 20 in the Entwurf Kata-log [henceforth EK] prove that the six works form an opus.) The five extant auto- graphs to Opus 64 are dated 1790,7 the autographs of Opus 71/74
6 For the "Paris" symphonies, see JHW, 1/12, p. vi, col. 2; for the Mozart quartets, the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe VIII/20/1, Vol. 2, pp. vi-vii; for Haydn's Opus 50, see below. Haydn's authentic orderings of Opera 9, 17, 20, 33, 64, and perhaps Opus 54/55 differ from the traditional ones.
7This lays to rest Larsen's conjecture (Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, p. 129) that some of the quartets in Opus 64 might date from 1791, when Haydn was in London.
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TABLE I HAYDN'S STRING QUARTETS: THE AUTHENTIC SOURCES
Work Type of Source Contentsa Publisher (cf. Hoboken) or Location Early Quartets:b EKc Hob. II:6, III:1-4, 10 (p. 3); Hob. Hob. II:6, 111:1-4, 6-8, 10, 12 I111:12 (p. 4); Hob. 111:7, 8 (p. 5) ("Opus 0"; "Opus 1," Nos. 1-4,
6; "Opus 2," Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6) MSS (1) Hob. III:1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 12 Budapest, National Sz6chinyi Library, Music Collection, K44d,e
(2) Hob. III:2, 6 Vienna, Austrian National Library, Music Collection, S.m. 16932'
(3) Hob. III:8 Prague, National Museum, Music Division, Radenin Collection, V 530 [a collection of MSS]e
Opus 9g EKe (Hob. 111:19-24)
MSS (1) Hob. 111:19, 22 (Nos. 1, 4) Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, IX 24982, 24973f
(2) [Prague; call number as above]e,h Opus 17g EKe (Hob. III:25-30)
Autograph Vienna, Musikfreunde, A 149 Opus 20J EKe (Hob. III:31-36)
Autographs (1) Vienna, Musikfreunde, A 150 (x) Draft of slow movement to Hob. Budapest [as above], EsterhAzy Archives, 111:33 (No. 3) Ms. Mus. I. 47 (autograph to Hob. II:16), fol. 16d,k
[Print] [Artaria]m Opus 33J MS Hob. 111:37, 38, 41, 42 Melk, Benedictine Monastery, VI. 736-739e (Hob. III:37-42)
Print Artaria
CA r)
to
w
0C
'10
E.,,
?3 rP
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Work Type of Source Contentsa Publisher (cf. Hoboken) or Location Opus 42n Autograph Berlin-Dahlem [West], Staatsbibliothek, (Hob. III:43) Stiftung preussischer Kulturbesitz, Music
Division, Mus. Ms. J. Haydn 34P [Print] [Hoffmeister]q
Opus 50n MSS (1) London, British Museum, Eg. 2379, fols. (Hob. III:44-49) 1-54 (engraver's copy for Forster)r
aWhere not the complete opus or group of works. bSee JHW, XII/I and Kritischer Bericht. eFor EK, the Entwurf-Katalog (i. e., Haydn's thematic catalogue from the years ca. 1765-78) see Larsen, Die Haydn- Uberlieferung,
chapter 6; facsim. in Larsen, Drei Haydn-Katalog in Faksimile (Copenhagen, 1941). Hoboken registers the appropriate entries from EK. dSee also Haydn Compositions in the Music Collection of the National Sz:chenyi Library in Budapest (Budapest, 1960). (Under Ms.
Mus. I. 127, for Hob. III: 78 [Op. 76, No. 4], for "parts" substitute "score.") The MS to the six early quartets is one of the so-called "Ftirnberg-MSS"; cf. p. 36,.
*Not in Hoboken. fNot identified as authentic in Hoboken. 9See JHW, XII/2. hNot an authentic MS, but a very early, reliable, Viennese one. JSee JHW, XII/3. kSee Somfai, "'Ich war nie ein Geschwindschreiber,'" Festskrift Jeiis Peter Larsen (Copenhagen, 1972), pp. 275-84. mHaydn authorized this print, but it is not authentic; i. e., it was not engraved from a reliable MS supplied by Haydn. Cf. JHW, XII/3. "See JHW, XII/4 (scheduled for publication in 1975). PSee Robert Lachmann, "Die Haydn-Autographe der Staatsbibliothck zu Berlin," Zeitschrift ffir Musikwissenschaft XIV (1932), 289-98.
aAuthenticity not documented, but highly plausible (Viennese print from Haydn's lifetime, London print from 1791-95, unusually close to autograph textually, etc.).
rSee Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalog of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, Vol. III, Instrumental Music (London, 1909). "Authenticity highly implausible. tSee JHW, XII/5 (scheduled for publication in 1975). uSee Autograph Musical Scores and Autograph Letters in the Whittall Foundation Collection (Washington, 1951). vSee Hoboken under 111:75-80 and XXVIa:43. wGeiringer's statement (Joseph Haydn: A Creative Life in Music, 3rd ed. [Berkeley. Calif., 19681, p. 402) that this autograph is owned
by the firm Broude Bros. is erroneous (private communication, gratefully acknowledged, from Mr. Ronald Broude to Ms. Laurie Shulman, Cornell University). Nor is the autograph in the possession of Breitkopf & Hlirtel, the owners before World War II (information kindly supplied by Dr. Feder). A photograph is preserved; see the Katalog des Archivs fiir Photogramme musikalischer Meisterhandschriften, Widmung Anthony van Hoboken [housed in Vienna, Austrian National Library] Vienna, 1967), p. 208, No. 1237.
0-
lq
0 0
'-1
V3
Co
o
?,.9
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are all dated 1793, and both autographs to Opus 77 are dated 1799. As Haydn's autograph numberings prove (correct Hoboken, page 422, accordingly), Opus 71/74 is a single set of six works; the same is true of Opus 54/55 (see below). The traditional division of these two opera into two groups of three reflects merely the accidental circumstance that Pleyel's complete edition was based on French prints which so divide them. But his division is wholly arbitrary: other prints of Opus 54/55 and Opus 71/74 keep a single opus number for all six works; and other works, like Opus 64 and Opus 76, which Pleyel gives as single sets of six, appeared elsewhere as two sets of three with separate opus-numbers. Except for Opus 42 (one quartet), Opera 77 and 103 (see below), and just possibly Opus 76 (see below), all of Haydn's quartets from Opus 9 on originated as coherent sets of six in single (extended) compositional acts.
The remaining quartets from the 1780s and 1790s can be dated more or less precisely by letters, documents relating to their pub- lication, and related indications. For the unfinished quartet Opus 103, 1803 is usually given as the date of composition, on the grounds of the dated autograph.8s But Haydn may have begun this work, and perhaps even completed it in substance, in the spring of 1802. His friend and biographer Griesinger reported as early as 1799, and again in 1801, that Haydn had promised to compose a set of "quin- tets" (an error for "quartets"?) for Count Fries, the eventual dedi- catee of Opus 103. More telling is Griesinger's remark of March 20, 1802, to the effect that Artaria planned to delay an edition of "two quartets" - Opus 77 - until Haydn could produce a third.9 We may therefore conclude that Haydn originally planned Opus 103 as an addition to Opus 77, to complete a "normal" set of three, and may speculate that Haydn began to compose Opus 103 in the
The publication of Kozeluch's edition in early 1791 (cf. Alexander Weinmann, Ver- zeichnis der Verlagswerke des Musikalischen Magazins in Wien, 1784-1802: "Leopold Kozeluch" [Vienna, 1950], pp. 6, 12) also implies that Haydn sold Opus 64 to Koze- luch before departing for London in December of 1790.
8 Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 37 and 41 (modify Hoboken's description of the date on the autograph accordingly).
9C. F. Pohl, Joseph Haydn, III, written from Pohl's notes by Hugo Botstiber (Leipzig, 1927), 139-40, 180-81; Giinter Thomas, "Griesingers Briefe fiber Haydn: Aus seiner Korrespondenz mit Breitkopf & Hirtel," Haydn-Studien, I (1965-67), 76 and 87; Edward Olleson, "Georg August Griesinger's Correspondence with Breitkopf & Hirtel," Haydn Yearbook, III (1965), 10, 25, 36. These sources note Griesinger's con- fusion in speaking of quintets but do not mention Opus 103 in this connection.
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spring of 1802. Upon finding that he could not compose it before having to turn to the Harmoniemesse, on which he worked through the summer of 1802, Haydn would have abandoned his aim of completing a set of three quartets and allowed Artaria to publish Opus 77 as we know it. (The edition duly appeared on Septem- ber 11, 1802.) Our hypothesis is the more attractive in that it ex- plains the otherwise inexplicable grouping of two quartets in Opus 77. The following year, realizing that he was unable to complete the work at all, Haydn would have written down the autograph we now possess and dated it 1803. The connection between Opus 77 and Opus 103 was clear enough to Artaria, at any rate: the firm's edition of the latter work reads "3me [sic] et Dernier Quatuor"!1" And the existence of a separate draft for the minuet (cf. Table I), which could easily date from 1802, is equally compatible with this hypothesis. The date of Opus 103 must thus read "'[1802-] 1803."
The date 1797 usually given for Opus 76 is also partly hypo- thetical. That Haydn had completed at least three of the six works by June 14 of that year follows from a remark by the Swedish com- poser F. S. Silverstolpe, an acquaintance of Haydn's at this time; and a quasi-public performance of Hob. 111:77 (No. 3) in Eisenstadt the same summer is the subject of an entry in Joseph Carl Rosen- baum's diary. The documented composition of the Kaiserlied in January, 1797, provides, finally, a secure terminus ante quem non for the "Emperor" Quartet (No. 3). It therefore seems safe to place the composition of three quartets from Opus 76 in the first half of 1797.11 In all probability these were the present Nos. 1-3 (Hob. 111:75-77), because later Haydn referred explicitly to "the fifth quartet in D major and ... the last in E-flat," corresponding to the
10oSee Carl Maria Brand, Die Messen von Joseph Haydn (Wiirzburg, 1941), pp. 217-23, 451-53; Friedrich Lippmann's foreword to JHW, XXIII/5, p. vii, note 5. On the date of Artaria's edition, see Weinmann, Vollstiindiges Verlagsverzeichnis Artaria & Comp. (Vienna, 1952), p. 54 (and refine Hoboken accordingly).
11 Silverstolpe: Hoboken, p. 434; DWnes Bartha, ed., Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen von Joseph Haydn (Kassel, 1965), p. 334. Rosenbaum: Else Radant, "The Diaries of Joseph Carl Rosenbaum (1770-1829)," Haydn-Yearbook, V (1968), 26. On the Kaiserlied (Hob. XXVIa:43), see Pohl-Botstiber, pp. 115-18; Franz Grasberger, Die Hymnen Osterreichs (Tutzing, 1968), pp. 9-94. (Hoboken errs in claiming [p. 434] that Pohl-Botstiber describe a performance from Opus 76 in 1796; this was the date of the election of Esterhdzy's visitor, the Grand Duke Joseph, as Palatin of Hungary, not his visit to Eisenstadt. Pohl-Botstiber's date 1799 for Opus 76 (p. 149), in turn, confuses its date of composition with that of publication; it was Opus 77 which ori- ginated in 1799.)
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familiar traditional order.12 Whether Haydn wrote Nos. 4-6 (Hob. 111:78-80) in the same period is conjectural, but since every other six-work opus originated as a coherent set and (with the possible exception of Opus 9) within a single calendar year, the date "1797" remains the most plausible one for the entirety of Opus 76. This
hypothesis finds support in Silverstolpe's further remark (loc. cit.) that the quartets for Erd6dy - to whom all six are dedicated - could not be published for "several years" after their composition; yet all six appeared in 1799.
Opus 54/55 dates from 1788. On August 10, 1788, Haydn writes: "As I'm short of cash just now, I offer to supply you with three new quartets or three new piano trios [mit einer Violin, und Violoncello begleitete Clavier Sonaten] by the end of December." Haydn's im-
plication that neither quartets nor trios were then in existence is substantiated, for the trios at any rate, by his response (August 17) to Artaria's selection of them in preference to new quartets: "my diligence [in composing] these trios will testify to my desire to re- main your friend." But on September 22 (or possibly in October), Haydn inquired whether Artaria had purchased an entire set of six
quartets - from the violinist Johann Tost: "I heard today that you have purchased my six very newest quartets [meine allerlezte 6 neue
quartetten] and two symphonies [Hob. 1:88,89] from Tost."'3 Un- less Haydn wrote six quartets in a month, from August 10 to mid- September (which is unlikely both intrinsically and in relation to his known practice otherwise), or unless Tost could offer quartets to Artaria before Haydn had composed them, this offer implies that Haydn was not candid with Artaria on August 10: the quartets must have been fully or partially completed by that date.14 A composi- tional period of three or at most four months seems more plausible than the customary six, and not only because of these curious rela- tions among Haydn, Tost, and Artaria; the surviving autograph fragments of Hob. 111:58 and 59, while not mere drafts--every
12 Haydn to Artaria, July 12, 1799; see Briefe, No. 224 (English trans. in Landon, ed., The Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn, p. 158; but all the translations given here are original).
13Briefe, Nos. 107, 108, 110 (Collected Correspondence, pp. 77-78). (Hoboken does not cite the first two of these letters in connection with Opus 54/55.) On the mysterious Tost, violinist in the EsterhAzy Kapelle 1783-88, see Briefe, pp. 194, 205-6, 212, and the references given there.
14 To be sure, Haydn had written only one and one-half trios by November 16. Cf. Briefe, No. 112; Collected Correspondence, p. 80.
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note is stated or clearly implied - show extreme haste, in part by numerous shorthand indications of the actual contents: "col Basso" and other abbreviations of this type, wavy lines for rapid scalewise
passages, formulas for repetitions. In any event, since Opus 50 was not complete until mid-September, 1787 (see below), the undertak- ing of this new set of six before 1788 can reasonably be excluded; and since Tost had Opus 54/55 with him when he left Vienna for Paris not later than the beginning of 1789, Haydn must have com- pleted them well before.15 Opus 54/55 can therefore be safely, if
hypothetically, dated: summer and autumn, 1788. No problems of this sort arise with Opus 50 or Opus 33. In letters
to Artaria on February 11 and 14, 1787, Haydn remarks, "I will deliver the quartet a week from tomorrow," and "the quartet will follow shortly.""16 That these remarks refer to Opus 50, rather than the quartet arrangements of the Seven Words (mentioned elsewhere in both letters), seems plausible in light of Haydn's specification in the next relevant letter, dated March 7: "I enclose the first move- ment of the third quartet [of Opus 50]; you'll get the others in a few days."'7 From then on he made steady progress: the "fourth" quartet was completed by May 19 (and delivered June 23), and the "sixth" (sic) was delivered on July 12. On the same day Haydn remarked, "I haven't been able to write out [setzen; here, literally, 'set down'] the fifth quartet, but it is already composed [componirt]"; in the event, he did not deliver it until much later, in early September."8 (Here Haydn implies a two-stage process of composition: a continu- ous draft of the musical substance, say the outer parts only ["com- poniren"], followed later by the production of a complete score ["setzen"]. The latter document, which we call "the" autograph, takes on more or less the status of a fair copy, depending on the degree of amplification and revision it contains compared to the
15 Tost reached Paris in time for Haydn to receive a letter from him "some time ago" ("vor langer Zeit") as Haydn related to Sieber on April 5, 1789 (Briefe, No. 120; Collected Correspondence, pp. 56-57).
16 Briefe, Nos. 77 (note 3) and 78 (note 4); Collected Correspondence, pp. 56-57. 17 Briefe, No. 80 (emphasis added; Collected Correspondence, p. 59). Hoboken (pp.
408-9) fully summarizes the history of Opus 50 from March 7 on. Since the order of the six quartets in Artaria's authentic edition is the same as the traditional one in the "eighty-three," we may identify Haydn's "third" quartet with Opus 50, No. 3, in E-flat, and analogously in the following letters.
18 The quotations are from Briefe, No. 91 (Collected Correspondence, p. 66; but Landon translates Haydn's "hab ich das 5te noch nicht setzen k6nnen" incorrectly as "... prevented my having the 5th [quartet] copied. .. .).
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draft. The extant sketches and drafts [cf. Table I] support this inter- pretation; but a full study of this subject is still wanting.) Thus the documented history of Opus 50 reaches from March (or January) to
July or, depending on one's interpretation, September, 1787 - a total of approximately six months, or one month per quartet.'9 Hence, the common hypothesis that Haydn began Opus 50 as early as 1784 is incompatible with its documented history and inconsistent with Haydn's general practice in quartet-writing - and is based in the first place on an erroneous interpretation of Haydn's letters to Artaria of April 5 and May 18, 1784.20
Like its counterpart, Opus 103, the single quartet Opus 42 is dated (1785) on the autograph. But this autograph also may repre- sent only the last stages of composition - reworkings of material from the "small, three-movement" quartets Haydn claimed to have been writing for a Spanish commission in 1784 (cf. page 18 and note 20, above). Even if he abandoned this project, he might have writ- ten one or more complete movements in April or May (the relevant letters to Artaria are dated April 5 and May 18). More to the point, Haydn's nearly invariable practice was to obtain a "little something extra" from his music - including compositions from this period written, ostensibly, for exclusive Spanish commissions, such as the Seven Words - by reselling them to other patrons or publishers.21 Furthermore, the autograph to Opus 42, especially in the Adagio, contains compositional revisions in different ink (highly unusual in a Haydn autograph) implying a later reworking of an already com- pleted movement. According to this admittedly speculative hypoth- esis, Opus 42 thus comprises one or more movements written in 1784 and revised in 1785, together with newly composed material
19 Cf. Griesinger's authentic biography, Biographsiche Notizen iiber Joseph Haydn (Leipzig, 1810); trans. in Vernon Gotwals, Joseph Haydn: Eighteenth-Century Gentle- man and Genius (Madison, 1963), pp. 61-2: "'I never was a fast writer, . . .' [said Haydn]. On each of the twelve symphonies that Haydn composed in England, he spent, of course amidst other occupations, one month, on a mass three months."
20 This misinterpretation is found throughout the literature, e. g., in Pohl, Joseph Haydn, II (Leipzig, 1882), 223; Hoboken, p. 408 (and for 13 May read 18 May); Col- lected Correspondence, p. 45; Briefe, commentary to Nos. 62 (note 1) and 64 (note 1). As we now know, in 1784 Haydn was referring to the quartets he possibly wrote on a Spanish commission; cf. Feder, "Uberlieferung" [note 1], pp. 41-42; JHW, XII/1, fore- word. (A less common error, confusing Opus 50 with the "Paris" symphonies, is cor- rected in Hoboken, p. 408; Briefe, p. 164, note 1; etc.)
21 Briefe, No. 66: "Kleinen Nutzen" (Collected Correspondence, p. 47); cf. Larsen, Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, p. 121.
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(for details, cf. JHW, XII/4). This hypothesis, if correct, explains what hitherto has remained mysterious: the origins of Opus 42, its status as a single quartet (not part of a larger opus), and its miniature dimensions.
The latest possible date for completion of Opus 33 is the end of November, 1781, for the famous letters to private subscribers, in which Haydn speaks of 'the entirely new special manner" of these works, are dated December 3 of that year, and otherwise Artaria could hardly have received the music in time to advertise prepara- tion of his edition on December 29.2" This estimate agrees with Haydn's apology, in a letter of October 18, for his delay in reading proof for a set of lieder (Hob. XXVIa: 1-12) which Artaria was just then publishing: '"I have been working on six new quartets, and this has kept me from the lieder.... I'm writing new quartets right now; in fact four are already done.'"" If Haydn had completed four quar- tets by October 18, he could easily have written the last two in the six weeks between that date and the end of November.
When might Haydn have begun Opus 33? A clue lies in three earlier letters, all of which have to do with the same set of lieder.24 Haydn's original agreement with Artaria had been for two sets of twelve each, and he submitted the first set with the letter of July 20. Yet as early as May 27 he claimed that he had already composed fourteen, complaining that only a delay in receiving additional texts had prevented him from composing even more. But by June 23 these fourteen had grown only to fifteen, to eighteen by October 18. In this five-month period, then, Haydn composed just four lieder, and on October 18 he admitted that the cause of the delay had been his work on Opus 33. Thus we may hypothesize that Haydn began these works at the beginning of June, 1781, and completed them by the end of November.25 This period of almost exactly six months agrees with that we have already noted for Opus 50.
22 Briefe, Nos. 39 and 40 (Collected Correspondence, pp. 33-35); Feder, "Ein vergessener Haydn-Brief," Haydn-Studien, I (1965-67), 114-16; Hoboken quotes the advertisement.
23 Briefe, No. 38a (Collected Correspondence, p. 32). 24 Briefe, Nos. 33-35 (Collected Correspondence, pp. 27-32). 25 This argument was also developed, independently, by Ludwig Finscher: cf. his
Studien zur Geschichte des Streichquartetts, Vol. I, Die Entstehung des klassischen Streichquartetts: Von den Vorformen zur Grundlegung durch Joseph Haydn (Kassel, 1974), pp. 240-1. It decisively refutes the erroneous date "1778-1781" found in Ho- boken (pp. 393, 401) and elsewhere. The latter conceit derives from a set of forgeries,
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While Haydn wrote almost all of his music in the main instru- mental genres after 1780 directly for publication or sale to private parties outside Esterhaz, his pre-1780 instrumental music was, as far as we know, destined primarily for the Esterhazy court. In any case, the earlier periods do not provide explicit documentation of the sort we have presented for the later works. We know nothing of the origin or purpose of the three sets of quartets Opera 9, 17, and 20. Were they Kammermusik for the prince? No authentic manu- scripts of these works in the EsterhAzy archives are extant, and no documents there refer to them. Were they written for performance in Vienna during the winter "season"? No direct evidence is at hand. Were they written on private commission? When or where were they performed in Haydn's presence? Answers to these and all similar questions are simply lacking.26 Now Opus 17 and Opus 20 are dated 1771 and 1772 on the extant autographs. But to date Opus 9 only indirect means are at hand: catalogue entries, inau- thentic prints, technical scrutiny of watermarks, paper types, scribal handwriting, and so forth.
We can estimate the date of Opus 9 from Haydn's entry in the
Entwulrf Katalog, on the bottom of page 2, following an entry, higher on the same page, of the overture to Lo Speziale (Hob. Ia:10). As that opera was first given in the fall of 1768, he could not have en- tered its overture in EK at any earlier time, and might not have gotten around to it until, say, the following winter. In any case, he must have entered Opus 9 still later.27 Of the two symphonies pre- viously entered on the same page, an authentic manuscript of Hob.
masquerading as letters from "Count Morzin" to Haydn; cf. Collected Correspondence, pp. vi-vii, and Briefe, pp. 11-12. To the arguments given there could be added the fact that very few letters to Haydn are preserved at all, save for honorific ones from his last years; a coherent set of twelve from ca. 1780 would have no parallel. Thus Unverricht's lingering belief that the letters might be genuine (Die Musikforschung, XVI [1963], 54) is not persuasive.
26 Dr. Burney's description of a quartet-party in Vienna on September 4, 1772, at which Haydn quartets were performed by, among others, his former cellist Joseph Weigl, awakens interest; but the works are not specified (Opus 17? Opus 20?), and Haydn appears not to have been present. (The Present State of Music in Germany ..., 2nd ed., Vol. I [London, 1775; facsim, New York, 1969], p. 294.)
27 Feder in JHW, XII/2, p. vi; cf. Larsen, Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 224-25. For the technique of dating Haydn's music by cross references between entries in EK and other data, see ibid., pp. 216-23. (This discussion of Opus 9 depends on the facsimile of EK, published in Larsen, Drei Haydn-Kataloge. I am indebted to Sonja Gerlach for certain refinements in the argument.)
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1:41 bearing a watermark known only from 1769, and a manuscript of Hob. 1:26 dated 1770, hint at 1768 or 1769 as dates of composi- tion. The "Grosse Orgelmesse" (Hob. XXII:4) is probably from 1766, though that date is conjectural.28 (For the dates of the lost Missa sunt bona mixta malis [Hob. XXII:3] and the "Cantilena pro Adventu" [Hob. XXIIId:3] there are no clues other than the entries in EK themselves.) These datings reinforce our rough estimate for the entry of Opus 9 in EK: late 1768 or 1769.
The only remaining incipit on this page of EK reads "Diverti- mento a cinq[ue] ["sei" crossed out] stromenti cioe 2 clarinetti 2 corni," with an incipit notated in F major (Hob. 11:5). This lost wind quartet featuring clarinets is, in fact, a further clue to the dating of Opus 9. As Hoboken noted, the incipit gives the same melody as that which opens Hob. X: 10, a quintet in D major for baryton, viola, bass, and two horns. Recently, however, Gerlach realized that the incipit of our wind quintet Hob. 11:5 "in F major" represents not a mere transposition of the D major baryton-quintet theme but the beginning of a work in D major, notated for clarinet in A!29 Thus either the lost wind quintet Hob. 11:5 or the baryton quintet Hob. X:10 is probably an arrangement of the other.
These data also help to explain why Haydn entered Hob. 11:5 - titled "Divertimento" - not on pages 3-5 with the other ensemble divertimentos, but on page 2.30 The last two staves on page 5 cite two baryton trios, Hob. XI:62 and 63. These trios were composed in early 1768, but Haydn did not enter them in EK until later: they appear as the first two in a large batch of incipits, Hob. XI:62-72, entered all at once on pages 5-6. Since Hob. XI:66-72 were not com- posed until the end of 1768, these entries in EK must have been made in the last days of 1768 at the earliest, more likely early in 1769.31
28 Hob. 1:41: Feder, "tberlieferung," p. 20 and note 62. Hob. 1:26: Landon, Symphonies, p. 271; idem, Supplement to the Symphonies of Joseph Haydn (London, 1961), p. 13 (correct Hoboken accordingly). Hob. XXII:4: Brand, Messen, pp. 36-37 (correcting Pohl, II, 38); Hoboken.
29 Hoboken, pp. 300 and 587; Gerlach in JHW, XIII, p. vii and note 17. 30 Larsen seems to have overlooked this entry in his description of the ensemble
divertimentos in EK (Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 223-24), although he did cite Hob. 11:5 correctly on p. 212. Otherwise, he would not have stated that EK's registration of divertimentos ceases with Hob. 11:4, on p. 5.
31 Ibid., pp. 228 and 233; Unverricht, Geschichte des Streichtrios (Tutzing, 1969), p. 144. The (partially unstated) basis for these datings is Haydn's postscripts to letters
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But if that is so, then the entry of the wind quintet Hob. 11:5 on page 2 must have come still later. For the only explanation for Haydn's failure to enter this work on page 5 is that the section orig- inally intended for divertimentos - pages 3-6 -had already been filled up.32 Not only was Hob. 11:5 the first nonbaryton diverti- mento to be entered outside the divertimento section, but when it was entered on page 2, the latter page contained nothing but sym- phonies and sacred vocal works. Most telling, the last nonbaryton divertimento that Haydn entered in the original section is an almost exact counterpart to Hob. II:5: "Divertimento a cinq[ue] ["sei" crossed out] cioe 2 clarinetti 1 ["2" crossed out] fagotto ["o" orig- inally "i"] e 2 corni [originally "oboe"]." This work, Hob. 11:4, is lost. In its original form, it was a sextet for two clarinets, two oboes, and two horns, but later Haydn arranged it as a quintet for two clarinets, two horns, and one bassoon - the precise scoring of Hob. II:5.33
The entry of Hob. 11:5 in EK thus took place after the entries of Hob. XI:62-72; that is, after the beginning of 1769, perhaps several months into that year, possibly even in 1770. But - to arrive finally at our result! - Opus 9, in turn, follows Hob. 11:5 on page 2 of EK, and so it was entered later still. Hence the earliest possible date of the entry of Opus 9 in EK is early 1769, and the "likely" date falls between mid-1769 and 1770.34
This juxtaposition of Hob. 11:5 and Opus 9 undermines Larsen's claim that the appearance of Opus 9 on a separate page from the other divertimentos signals the rise of the string quartet as an in- dependent genre, outside the divertimento framework.35 Hob. II:5 appeared on page 2 only because it had been squeezed out of the
dated March 20, 1768, promising Esterhtizy new baryton trios that week; and December 22 of the same year (Briefe, Nos. 7 and 9; Collected Correspondence, pp. 8 and 12-13).
32 On the "divertimento section" in EK, see Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 223-24. 33 Neither Larsen (ibid., pp. 212 and 213) nor Hoboken (p. 300) points out these
similarities. (Both works appear together, of course, as Nos. 4 and 5 in the list of divertimentos in the "Haydn Verzeichnis" of 1805.) The bassoon and bass instrument in Hob. 11:5 is conjectural, but its suitability for clarinets and horns and the similari- ties between this work and Hob. II:4 render it virtually certain. It is tempting to suppose that Hob. 11:4 also is for A clarinet; in this case it too would represent a work in D Major, the key of a second, lost baryton quintet, Hob. X:7! But the incipits do not match.
34 Previously, only "1768" had been established. 35 Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, p. 225. This misinterpretation is, at least in part, the
consequence of Larsen's overlooking Hob. II:5 on p. 2 (cf. note 30, above).
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divertimento section, and so Opus 9 merely continued the regime of the divertimento-in-exile, so to speak. And the circle closes as we note Haydn's title in EK for Opus 9: "Divertimento a quatro." Nor does the continuity of divertimentos in EK stop at Opus 9; both Opus 17 and Opus 20 are classified as divertimentos. Both were
squeezed in, just as Opus 9 had to be; but instead of turning to a new page, as he did for Opus 9, Haydn placed Opus 17 and Opus 20 back in the original divertimento section (even page 2 having been filled in the meantime), Opus 17 in the margin of page 6, Opus 20 in the margin of page 5. Even terminological continuity is maintained: the remaining five works in Opus 9 are titled simply "a quatro" or "a 4tro," that is, abbreviations of the full title "Diver- timento a quatro." The two authentic manuscripts (cf. Table I) bear precisely the same title. In EK each work in Opus 17 bears the same short title, "a 4tro"; in view of the title "Divertimento a
quatro" on the autograph, these designations too must be abbrevia- tions of "Divertimento a quatro." In Opus 20, finally, titles are lacking in EK, but all six autographs are uniformly titled "Diverti- mento a quattro." Larsen's further remarks about the status of Opus 17 and Opus 20 as "quartets" rather than "divertimentos" are there- fore equally out of place. Just as the ten early quartets had been, all three of these sets are "Divertimenti a quatro." Neither in EK nor in any other authentic source is there any hint that Haydn used the title "Quartet" before Opus 33, and he did not completely abandon "Divertimento" in the context of "serious" chamber music until after 1785.
These remarks do not imply that Opera 9, 17, and 20 are not "true" string quartets; they are. It is only the modern terminology which lagged behind the rise of the genre. Haydn, in particular, used the title "Divertimento" for all his nonorchestral instrumental mu- sic; for him "Divertimento a quatro" implied neither more nor less than "Composition for Four Instruments." To a lesser extent, the same was true of all Austrian chamber music.36
The date of Opus 9 suggested by the entry in EK - 1769 or 1770 - is supported by the approximate dates 1769-73 for the two authentic manuscripts.37 The Breitkopf Catalogue's citation of Opus 9 in 1771 implies an absolute limit of 1771 at the latest, with 1770
36Webster, "Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early Classical Period," Journal of the American Musicological Society, XXVII (1974), 212-47.
37 From their watermarks; cf. JHW, XII/2, Kritischer Bericht, Sources (1) and (2).
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a more realistic limit and 1768-70 as the probable period of com-
position.38 Hummel's first edition is also to be dated 1771, as im-
plied by its plate number 208 and its opus number "7."39 Finally, the terminus ante quem 1770 is to be assumed not only for these reasons but also because Haydn composed Opus 17 in 1771. Hence
every documentary testimony implies that Haydn wrote Opus 9 in the latter part of 1769 or in 1770.
The earliest reasonable date on stylistic grounds would be ca. 1766;40 but even here 1769 or 1770 is more plausible. The quartets in Opus 9 are large, important works; they were written as a unified set of six, as Haydn's entry in EK and the distribution in contempo- rary sources show; they signified a departure from his previous com-
positional interests. All this implies that Haydn entered these quar- tets in EK and prepared copies for sale or gift shortly after composing them. A further argument is the fact that Haydn would hardly have had time to write six large string quartets - as we have seen, a reasonable period for such a set was six months - in the years 1766- 68, when he wrote more than twenty baryton trios per year. In the
years 1769-71, however, they average only eight per year. In addi- tion, after writing Italian operas in each of the three years 1766, 1768, and 1769 (or 1769-70), Haydn composed no others until
L'infedelta' delusa of 1773.41 It thus seems logical to posit a comple- mentary turn towards quartet (and symphony?) on Haydn's part during the years 1770-72. In addition to this general shift of em-
phasis, there is the more specific compositional relationship between
Haydn's cultivation of baryton trios in the late 1760s and his pro- duction of string quartets in the early 1770s - quite as if, in the latter new and more ambitious world, he profited from his previous experience with an informal soloistic ensemble of low- and middle-
range strings.42 On all counts, then, Opus 9 can be dated: (the last half of) 1769 or 1770.
38 Ibid., foreword; cf. Barry S. Brook, ed., The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue (New York, 1966), p. 418. (Contrary to Pohl, II, 43, and Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, p. 225, Opus 9 did not appear in Breitkopf's 1769 catalogue.)
39 Otto Erich Deutsch, "Musikverlagsnummern: Ein Nachtrag," Die Musikforschung, XV (1962), 155; Feder in JHW, XII/2, p. vi; Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 194-95; Deutsch, Musikverlagsnummern, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1961), p. 16. (Hoboken's date "1769" for this edition is thus erroneous.)
4o Feder in JHW, XII/2, p. vi. 41 According to the datings in Unverricht, Streichtrio, p. 144; JHW, XXV/2-5. 42 Oliver Strunk, "Haydn's Divertimenti for Baryton, Viola and Bass," The Musi-
cal Quarterly, XVIII (1932), 229-43; Finscher, Geschichte des Streichquartetts, I, 163-
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For all the difficulties in dating Opus 9 precisely, it is, at least, a single opus of six works; there is no doubt of its authenticity, its contents, or its membership in the genre "string quartet"; and it has always been evident that it must have originated, roughly, in the late 1760s. But Haydn's early string quartets, Hob. 11:6 ("Opus 0"), III:1-4, 6-8, 10, 12, cannot even be grouped into coherent sets, and not even an approximate date can be taken for granted; the estimates range from 1750 to well into the 1760s.43
These quartets were first widely disseminated in the early 1760s. The earliest documented date, 1762, appears on manuscripts to Hob. III: 12, 2, 1, 3, 6 at Kremsmiinster and Hob. II:10 and 12 (the latter now lost) at Gittweig."4 In 1763, the eight works Hob. 11:6, III: 1-4, -6, 7 and F4 (spurious) appeared in Breitkopf's nonthematic Ver- zeichniss musikalischer Biicher; then, in 1765, in the thematic cat- alogue. The latter catalogue also cites Hob. 11:2, 21, 22 and 111:8, 10, 12; their absence in the nonthematic catalogue indicates that they became available to Breitkopf between 1763 and 1765.45 This pro- gression from dated manuscripts in 1762 via catalogue entries in 1763 leads smoothly to Chevardibre's first edition of "Opus 1," which appeared in January, 1764 - the first print of Haydn's music anywhere. By the middle 1760s all of these quartets had appeared in print.46 Finally, by the mid-1760s Haydn's quartets were eliciting frequent appraisals in the journalistic literature, all emphasizing, with varying degrees of approval, their novelty and popularity.47
67 and 186-87. Haydn's output was usually "compartmentalized" in the manner described; cf. Landon and Larsen, "Haydn," MGG, V, col. 1895.
43 Landon, "Opera 1 and 2"; Feder's foreword and Kritischer Bericht to JHW, XII/1. Dr. Feder had the great kindness to read an early version of this account of Haydn's early quartets, and to permit me to read his in typescript; mine has been materially improved as a result.
44 Landon, op. cit., p. 185; Hoboken, pp. 372-75. 45 Pohl, I, 330; Hoboken, p. 360; Breitkopf, pp. 140 and 153. 46 Chevardisre's "Opus 1" (Hob. 111:1-4 and two flute quartets by Toeschi) was
advertised January 30, 1764 (Hoboken, p. 361; Cari Johansson, French Music Pub- lishers' Catalogues, Vol. I [Stockholm, 1955], p. 68). As Feder has shown (JHW, XII/1, Kritischer Bericht, p. 25), Hoboken's erroneous datings of Chevardibre's two editions of "Opus 1" (1762 and 1764) must be corrected to 1764 and 1770-71, respectively. Huberty's edition of Hob. 11:6 appeared in the same year; Hummel's "Opus 1" fol- lowed in 1765 (Hob. II11:6, 11:1-4, 6); his "Opus 2" in 1765 or 1766 (Hob. 111:7-12); and Chevardi&re's "Opus 2" in 1766 (designated "Opus 3"; Hob. 11:21, 22, F5 [spur- ious]; III: 7, 8, 10). Cf. Hoboken; JHW, pp. 25-27.
47 Collected in Sandberger, "Zur Einbiirgerung der Kunst Joseph Haydns in Deutschland," Neues Beethoven Jahrbuch, VI (1935), 5-25.
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In spite of the appearance of Haydn's first quartets in the early sixties, and not before, there is universal agreement that he com- posed them in the fifties. This hypothesis rests principally on Grie- singer's authentic biography:
. the following quite accidental circumstance led [Haydn] to try his luck writing quartets. A certain Baron Fiirnberg invited his pastor, his steward, Haydn, and Albrechtsberger (a cello-playing brother of the famous learned composer) to his country seat in Weinzirl, some distance from Vienna, to provide a little musical entertainment. Fiirnberg encouraged Haydn to compose something for these quartet-parties; Haydn, then eighteen years of age, accepted, and in this way his first quartet came into being. [Incipit: Hob. III:l/I, 1-3] This quartet had a great success as soon as it appeared, and so Haydn was encouraged to continue working in the genre.48
Griesinger's identification of Haydn's patron as "Baron" [Freiherr Karl Joseph Weber Edler von] Fiirnberg receives strong if indirect support from two authentic testimonies. The first is Haydn's own recollection (in an autobiographical sketch of 1776) of having been recommended to Count Morzin, his first legitimate employer, by Fiirnberg himself:
... At last, on the recommendation of the late [Baron] v. Fiirnberg (who was
especially generous to me), I was appointed conductor with Count Morzin, and from there I joined His Highness Prince Esterhaizy as kapellmeister. .. .49
The second "testimony" is the existence of authentic parts to six early quartets (and other early works), bearing Haydn's autograph corrections, now in the Esterhaizy archives but once --as the ex libris "Fiirnberg Obrest [sic] Lieut." proves - in the possession of Baron Joseph Fiirnberg's son.50
Haydn must have written the early quartets between his depar- ture from Saint Stephens around 1750 and his employment by Es- terhaizy in 1761. (Since Fiirnberg came into possession of Weinzirl in 1748 and died in 1767, no narrowing of these limits is possible on that basis.) The appointments to Morzin and especially to Esterhazy marked a decided change in Haydn's professional status and com- positional activity: he was now in charge of an orchestra; many of his earliest symphonies were written for Morzin, and many more,
48 Griesinger (see note 19, above), p. 16; quoted throughout the literature. 49Briefe, No. 21, p. 77 (Collected Correspondence, p. 19). 50 On Fiirnberg, see Pohl, I, 180-84; on the "Fiirnberg-MSS," cf. Table I; Feder,
"Oberlieferung," pp. 16-17; JHW, XII/1, Kritischer Bericht, pp. 10-11. (Pohl, I, 182, identifies "Lieutenant Colonel" Fiirnberg as the son of Haydn's patron, putting Feder's doubts on this score to rest.)
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of course, for Esterhazy. In view of Haydn's general tendency, noted above, to cultivate different genres at different stages of his career, it is tempting to take the documented relationship between Fuirn- berg and Haydn's quartets as typical of the 1750s, and to conclude that the majority of the early "Divertimentos" (keyboard sonatas both accompanied and unaccompanied, string trios, string quartets, ensemble divertimentos, wind-band pieces) originated in the fifties or, at any rate, before Haydn's appointment to Esterhazy."5 Another
consequence of this view is that "delayed" distribution of the quar- tets - not before the sixties - is no barrier to the hypothesis that
Haydn wrote them in the fifties; his new "legitimate" positions, from ca. 1759 on, brought him not only freedom from want but also, for the first time, the opportunity, the reputation, and the access to copyists necessary to create and satisfy broad interest in his music.52
But the date of Haydn's entry into Morzin's service is not secure!
Haydn himself gives no date. The traditional date, 1759, derives
(once again) from Griesinger; the other authentic biographer, Dies, agrees; and most later biographers repeat this date. Yet Pohl, nor- mally so certain of his "facts," puts in a caveat; and Carpani and, apparently following him, Geiringer place this event in 1758, which is in itself entirely plausible.53 The wider acceptance of 1759 derives
probably not so much from the general belief in Griesinger's greater reliability as from his far better known assertion --in the same sentence! - that Haydn's "first" symphony (Hob. I: 1) originated the same year. Here Griesinger errs, however: the symphony Hob. 1:37 exists in a manuscript dated 1758, and Haydn himself suggested, in old age, 1757 as a logical date for his first symphonies.54
51 Fiirnberg's connection with Haydn necessarily preceded his recommendation of the young composer to Morzin. On Haydn's career before 1761, see Pohl I, 117-99 (the most detailed account), and Landon and Larsen, "Haydn," MGG, V, cols. 1862-65 (the most reliable).
52 This argument I have adapted from Finscher, Geschichte des Streichquartetts, I, 159-60.
53 Griesinger, p. 20; Albert Christoph Dies, Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn (Vienna, 1810; modern ed. by Horst Seeger [Berlin, 1962]), p. 45; Gotwals, pp. 15, 98-99; Landon, Symphonies, p. 174; MGG, V, col. 1864. Pohl, I, 190; Giuseppe Carpani, Le Haydine, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1823), p. 92; Karl Geiringer, Haydn: A Creative Life in Music, 3rd ed. (Berkeley, Calif., 1968), p. 38.
54 Griesinger, pp. 20-21 (Gotwals, pp. 15-16). On the relative merits of Haydn's early biographers, see Gotwals, "The Earliest Biographies of Haydn," The Musical Quarterly, XLV (1959), 439-59. On the early symphonies, see Feder, "Oberlieferung," p. 25; Landon, Symphonies, p. 174.
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We become truly suspicious of the early biographers, however, when they turn to Haydn's departure from Morzin and his entry into Esterhazy's service. The date of Haydn's formal employment is fixed by the extant "Convention und Verhaltungs-Norma" dated Vienna, May 1, 1761.55 It is therefore disturbing to read in Grie-
singer that Haydn entered Esterhaizy's employ on March 19, 1760, in Dies that Haydn joined Esterhaizy shortly after leaving Morzin in 1760, and in Carpani that Haydn's strong desire for the transfer was satisfied "at last [finalmente]" in 1760.56 Perhaps Haydn did leave Morzin in 1760, and the early biographers simply "elided" this event with his entry into Esterhaizy's service in 1761. If this be so, then Haydn spent the year 1760-61 either as a free artist again in Vienna or perhaps with Esterhizy on an "unofficial" or trial basis. The latter
hypothesis gains a certain credibility from Haydn's marriage on November 26, 1760: if Haydn did leave Morzin in the same year, his marriage implies that he had other secure prospects.57 But from these indications the only safe conclusion regarding the early quartets is that they originated before May, 1761.
Now Griesinger says explicitly that Haydn wrote the quartets when he was eighteen; Dies, the same ("im neunzehnten Jahre"); Carpani, that he was a little over twenty. These assertions place them early in the 1750s; indeed Griesinger's and Dies's place them in the year 1750. It was Pohl who first suggested that 1750 was too early, proposing instead that Haydn wrote the quartets over a period of several years beginning about 1755.58 These two possibilities - ca. 1750 and ca. 1755 - have dominated all subsequent discussion.
At issue is the trustworthiness of Griesinger's account. His se- quence of the main events in Haydn's life during the 1750s not only seems reliable but is corroborated by Haydn himself: choirboy at Saint Stephen's, then the "lean years," then increasing confidence and independence, then Fiirnberg, then Morzin, then Esterhizy. In
particular, there seems no reason to doubt Fiirnberg's patronage for early Haydn quartets, perhaps his "first" quartet, perhaps even all ten early quartets. (Griesinger probably cited Hob. III: 1 as Haydn's "first" quartet merely because it occupied that position in Pleyel's
55 Briefe, No. 1; fascim. in Somfai, Joseph Haydn: Sein Leben in zeitgen6ssischen Bildern (Kassel, 1966), Plates 36ff.; trans. in Geiringer, Haydn, pp. 45-47.
56Griesinger, p. 16; Dies, pp. 46-7; Gotwals, Haydn, pp. 16 and 100; Carpani, p. 92.
57 MGG, V, col. 1865. 58 Griesinger, p. 13; Dies, p. 40; Gotwals, pp. 13, 95; Carpani, p. 90; Pohl, I, 185.
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complete edition. There is no reason to believe that Hob. III:1 was actually the first; on stylistic grounds, Hob. 11:6 and 111:6 are most plausible, and Hob. 111:2-4, 10, and 12 are very closely related to Hob. III: 1; on documentary grounds, Hob. 11:6, III: 1-4, 6, and pos- sibly 10, 12 are all plausible.59 And we have just noted that the sym- phony Hob. I:1, which Greisinger cites in the same way, is almost certainly not Haydn's first.) But all three early biographers date Haydn's departure from Saint Stephen's and his first quartet not by calendar years, but in terms of Haydn's age.60 The latter method not only is inherently susceptible to error but suggests that Griesinger obtained the information from Haydn himself in informal conver- sation: "I left school when I was sixteen; I wrote my first quartet at eighteen." Accounts of this sort even from a man of perfect memory and in the prime of life are suspicious; when Griesinger and Dies came on the scene, Haydn was neither. The date 1750, then, based essentially on Griesinger's "achtzehn Jahre alt," is to be doubted - not for the frivolous reasons Pohl adduces (page 185), but simply because it is not convincing testimony.
Furthermore, the circumstantial evidence of Griesinger's ac- count strongly suggests that Haydn's quartets originated after 1755. Fiirnberg is introduced after descriptions of Haydn's pilgrimage to Mariazell, his quarters in the Michaelerhaus, his contact with C. P. E. Bach's works, and his intercourse with Metastasio and Porpora. Immediately following the quartet episode, moreover, Griesinger describes the robbery of Haydn's possessions from his new quarters on the Seilerstatte; he occupied these quarters, the fruit of improved financial circumstances, in the mid-fifties at the earliest. And among the compensations for his losses from the robbery was a two-month stay with Fiirnberg himself.61 Indeed, one authority tells us that Haydn's original connection with Fiirnberg was as music master to the latter's family and that Fiirnberg's Vienna residence was near the Seilerstaitte62 - circumstances which presuppose the Haydn of 1755 and after.
59 Cf. JHW, XII/1, p. ix, col. 2. 60 The traditional date "1750" (some accounts have it "1749') for Haydn's de-
parture from Saint Stephen's is even less secure than "1759" for his employment by Morzin! This topic cannot be pursued here; cf. MGG, V, col. 1862.
61 Griesinger, p. 17 (Gotwals, p. 14); cf. Pohl, I, 187-88. 62Fritz Dworschak, "Joseph Haydn und Karl Joseph Weber von Fiirnberg,"
Unsere Heimat (1932, Nos. 6 and 7), pp. 190ff.; as cited in Rosemary Hughes, Haydn (London, 1962), p. 27, and in Feder, JHW, XII/1, p. ix.
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In this connection Larsen's and Landon's surmise that Haydn probably had no access to noble patronage until 1755 or later takes on added significance.6' Indeed, it is not easy to see how Haydn, an adolescent just out of school, without reputation or instrumental compositions to his credit, could have come to Fiirnberg's attention in 1750. Around 1755 or 1757, however, he could have had recom- mendations from Porpora, Metastasio, and the authorities at churches where he had performed on Sundays; he probably had composed at least a few keyboard pieces, divertimentos, and string trios; he could have had experience teaching. Indeed Haydn apparently had made modest contacts with other minor nobility by ca. 1755, including a Sunday job as organist in the chapel of one Count Haugwitz; chamber-music evenings at the castle of Count Harrach, the lord of Rohrau (his birthplace); and an embarrassing encounter with the Countess Thun's decolletage."6 All these arguments support the hypothesis that Haydn's relationship with Fiirnberg developed around 1755 at the earliest, possibly not until ca. 1757.
One further remark of Griesinger's invites closer consideration: the reference to a cellist in the quartet-parties as "Albrechtsberger's brother." Pohl was the first to sense that all was not well: he showed that Albrechtsberger had no brothers. He also noted that various relations who had settled in the area included a branch of the family at Weiteneck, a possession of Fiirnberg's. There the matter rested until Fritz Dworschak suggested what, no doubt, others had conjectured, that Griesinger's cellist was, in fact, the composer and theorist Johann Georg Albrechtsberger."5 Nor is circumstantial evi- dence lacking: from 1757 to 1759 Albrechtsberger was organist at Maria-Taferl, only twelve kilometers from Weinzirl; and both Gerber and Abb6 Stadler claim, on undetermined authority, that he was a good cellist in his youth.66
63 MGG, V, col. 1863. 64 Griesinger, p. 17 (Gotwals, p. 14); Pohl I, 186-89; MGG, V, col. 1863; Geiringer,
Haydn, pp. 36-37; Leopold Nowak, Joseph Haydn: Leben, Bedeutung, Werk, 2nd ed.
(Vienna, 1959), p. 82. For all the reasons given above, Finscher's recent attempt (Geschichte des Streichquartetts, I, 137-39) to rehabilitate the date 1750-51, based al- most exclusively on Griesinger, is not persuasive.
65 As in note 62, above; Pohl, I, 184, note 7. On Albrechtsberger, see Oskar Kapp in Denkmiiler der Tonkunst in Osterreich XVI/2 (33); Andreas Weissenbaick, "Johann Georg Albrechtsberger als Kirchenkomponist," Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, XIV
(1927), 143-48; Herta Goos, "Albrechtsberger," MGG, I, cols. 303ff. 66 Gerber, Neues Lexikon, I, 55; Stadler in a manuscript-biography in the Austrian
National Library (cited by Feder in JHW, XII/1, p. ix). But both may have taken
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Furthermore, Albrechtsberger was in Vienna from 1753 to 1755, where, as a colleague of Michael Haydn's, he doubtless met and per- haps befriended Joseph. It is even possible that he was Joseph's student.67 (That the two were good friends after 1780 is well docu-
mented.)"s And upon his return to Melk (as organist) in 1759, Al-
brechtsberger wrote numerous string-quartet/divertimentos and re- lated works. Indeed one of these quartets is the very work, Hob. III:D3, which until recently seemed the best "candidate" for a "lost" Haydn quartet.69 Albrechtsberger's presence in Maria-Taferl from 1757 to 1759, and in Melk thereafter, will have made him avail- able for the quartet-parties at Weinzirl. Moreover, his early secular chamber music, an implausible repertory for a Benedictine monas- tery, could easily represent music for Fiirnberg, supplying the latter's needs after Haydn's departure for Morzin in 1758 or 1759. At a single stroke, Griesinger's cellist, the existence of Albrechtsberger's early chamber music, and its similarity to Haydn's like production would be explained. We therefore must emphasize that this pretty story remains hypothetical.70
the idea from Griesinger! Gerber, writing for publication in 1812, refers to "the recent account(s) of Haydn's life . . ." ("In den spateren Nachrichtcn zu Haydnis Leben"), a clear reference to Griesinger's and perhaps also to Dies's biography, both published 1810; nor does Stadler's account go beyond what he would have read in Griesinger. In this case the anecdotes would have no independent documentary value.
67 Kapp, p. ix; Weissenbick, p. 154; Goos, col. 303. Nobody mentions the possi- bility that Albrechtsberger might have been Haydn's student, but it seems plausible enough: Albrechtsberger was the younger man by four years, the same age as Haydn's pupil Robert Kimmerling; and in any case, whatever formal training Albrechtsberger enjoyed took place in Vienna between 1753 and 1755 (Kapp, p. ix). Cf. Pohl, I, 178-80.
68 E. g., Haydn's postscript in a letter to Eybler, March 27, 1789 (Briefe, No. 117; Collected Correspondence, p. 82); Albrechtsberger's dcdication of a canon to Haydn in 1806 with the words ". .. vetus et sincerus Amicus" ("old and dear friend": Briefe, No. 373; Collected Correspondence, p. 242).
69 Albrechtsberger composed at least a dozen chamber works during the Melk years, 1759-66; see Somfai, "Albrechtsberger-Eigenschriften in der Nationalbibliothek Szechenyi, Budapest," Studia Musicologica, I (1961), 175-202, Nos. 19, 24-27, 39; IV
(1963), Nos. 40-44, [58]. Since the autographs Nos. 43-44 are dated Melk, 1759, the date 1760 usually given for his return there must be corrected accordingly. On Hob. III:D3 (Somfai, I, No. 39), cf. Landon, "Doubtful and Spurious Quartets and Quintets attributed to Joseph Haydn," The Music Review, XVIII (1957), 218, No. IX.D-1; Feder, "Apokryphe 'Haydn' Quartette," Haydn-Studien, III/2 (1974), 135-36.
70 Dworschak, p. 198 (cited by Feder, JHW, XII/1 p. ix), and Landon (Collected Correspondence, p. 82, note 5) accept this hypothesis. Bartha objects (Briefe, p. 202, note 7); but his reasons - Albrechtsberger's stay in Gy6r (Raab; Hungary) from
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At all events, the biography unequivocally points to the late 1750s as the date of Haydn's early quartets. If Albrechtsberger was involved, the dates 1757-59 are secure (he was in Hungary from 1755 to 1757). In any case, Fiirnberg's association with Haydn falls be- tween 1755 and 1759. Even though one account places the quintet Hob. 11:2 in the year 1753, for the quartets the date 1750 (or so) implied by the early biographers seems wholly untenable. Here we may also note two stylistic features. All ten works are remarkably similar: all have five movements, and all but two have the identical F-M-S-M-F sequence (and the exceptions Hob. 111:3 and 12 are closely related); they share such features as trios in the tonic minor
(a common midcentury Viennese trait), "arioso" slow movements, and outer movements of severely restricted limits of space and ostensible "development.'"71 These very strong similarities suggest that Haydn composed all ten works within a very few years; this con- clusion dovetails nicely with the two-to-three-year period, ca. 1756- 59, suggested by the external evidence. The other feature, too broad to discuss here, is Haydn's compositional mastery in these quartets, "in spite of" their modest outward dimensions72 - a mastery which seems incompatible with an earlier date than 1755.
Furthermore, the usual argument for a longer period of compo- sition depends on a belief in the existence of "Opus 1" and "Opus 2" as separate entities; the latter can then be praised as an "improve- ment" on or an "advance" beyond "Opus 1." But neither the ex- ternal nor the internal evidence supports such a division. On page 3 of EK, Elssler grouped Hob. III:10 (from "Opus 2") and Hob. II:6 (from neither opus) with Hob. 111:1-4 (from "Opus 1"); and EK also includes Hob. 111:12 in the same general group of works (on page 4). (Hob. 111:7 and 8, it is true, were added a little later, on page 5.) The authentic Fiirnberg manuscript transmits Hob. 111:7
1755 to 1757 (ignoring his stay in Maria-Taferl, 1757-59), and his belief that "Opus 1" must have been written by 1755 - are insufficient.
71 Cf. Geiringer, Haydn, pp. 232-33; Finscher, Geschichte des Streichquartetts, I, 142-44.
72 This is emphasized convincingly (in a different context) by Finscher, pp. 142- 54, and, equally persuasively but with more attention to the significant individual event, by Donald Francis Tovey, "Haydn's Chamber Music" (1930), reprinted in The Main Stream of Music and Other Essays (New York, 1949), pp. 4, 9-10, 13-20. A sensitive discussion of one aspect of one movement is Thrasybulos Georgiades, "Zur Musiksprache der Wiener Klassiker," Mozart-Jahrbuch, 1951, pp. 50-59.
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and 12 (from "Opus 2") with Hob. III: 1, 2, 4, 6 (from "Opus 1"); Breitkopf transmits Hob. 11:6 and 111:7 with five works from "Opus 1" (Hob. III: 1-4, 6). Although the four-to-six works Hob. II:6, III: 1, 2, (3), 4, (6) constitute a main branch of the tradition, around which Hob. III: 7, 8, 10, 12 are grouped more loosely,73 no evidence shows that Haydn either composed or distributed the former group of six together.
The designations "Opus 1" and "Opus 2" derive from Pleyel's numberings of Chevardibre's and Hummel's prints of these works. Of course, these designations are not authentic, as follows also from the inclusion of the spurious arrangements Hob. I: 107 and 11:21, 22. More important, "Opus 1" and "Opus 2" are not opus numbers at all, but mere order numbers;74 as such, they can hardly bear the his- torical weight which has traditionally been attached to them. But the best argument against "Opus 1" and "Opus 2" is simply the lack of twelve early string quartets in the first place, which the spurious invention of "Opus 1," No. 5, and "Opus 2," Nos. 3 and 5, were of course contrived to gloss over. The designations "Opus 1" and "Opus 2" and all that they imply about Haydn's development must therefore simply be abandoned. (That the spurious "Opus 3" played an important role in those implications makes this necessity all the more pressing.) The only evidence justifying a possible di- vision among these works is Haydn's later entry of Hob. 111:7 and 8 in EK. If the other eight quartets originated between 1755 and 1757, Hob. 111:7 and 8 might date from 1759; if the others orig- inated closer to 1759, these two might date from 1760-61 (supposing Haydn left Morzin in 1760) or even, just possibly, from the earliest Esterha'zy years. In any case, this grouping would produce merely an earlier group of eight works and a later one of two.75
73See Feder's independent arrival at the same result (JHW, XII/1, p. ix, and Kritischer Bericht), on a broader basis of comparison.
74 From Opus 9 on, Pleyel's thematic catalogue of the quartets reads: "Ouevre 4e Connu 9. Ouevre 5e Connu 17. Ouevre 6e Connu 20 . . ."; each entry thus consists first of an order number, then an opus number. It is the latter which correspond to our familiar designations. But the entries for the earlier quartets read merely "Ouevre l"r
. 2 .. 3e"; i. e., they give only the order numbers. Indeed Bailleux's print of the quartets we call "Opus 3" reads "Opus 26"; Chevardibre's of those we call "Opus 2" reads "Opus 3"; etc. Cf. Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, p. 147, citing an analogous usage in Pleyel's catalogue of a collection of piano music; Hoboken, pp. 359, 378.
75 Cf. Die Haydn-Uberlieferung, pp. 223-24. (But Hob. 111:7 is included in the Fiirnberg MS and in the earlier group of quartets cited by Breitkopf.)
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We can now survey the chronology of Haydn's sixty-eight au- thentic string quartets (Table II). Contrary to the prevalent assump- tion of his linear "development" in quartet-writing, Haydn com- posed quartets in isolated periods of intense activity, separated by long pauses. (This pattern recurs in every other genre save the symphonies and, to a lesser extent, the piano sonatas.) The ten early works fall in the late 1750s, before Haydn's entry into Ester- hazy's service. The gap which separates them from Opera 9, 17, and 20 (1770 (?) -72) is at least ten years, probably twelve, possibly even fifteen - in any case longer than the more highly publicized pause of "ten" (actually nine) years between Opus 20 and Opus 33. Per- haps even less appreciated is the substantial break of six years fol-
TABLE II
THE DATES OF HAYDN'S QUARTETS
Work Date
Hob. 11:6, III:1-4, 6-8, 10, 12 Range of plausible dates: 1755-59 (-61?) (Fiirnberg connection)
lowing Opus 33.76 Not until Opus 50 (1787), but then continuing through Opus 77 (1799), did Haydn write quartets as a regular occupation: six opera, or (discounting Opus 77) an average of three quartets per year.
In the largest sense, then, Haydn's quartet production falls into two distinct periods: three widely separated groups through Opus 33, and regular production from 1787 until the end of his career. Within the first of these periods, each of the three groups presents a different solution to the stylistic and technical problems which Haydn faced: the miniature, yet masterly five-movement works of the late 1750s; the four-movement cycle, larger scale, and higher aesthetic pretensions - all of which were to characterize the genre from then on - of Opera 9, 17, and 20; and the frankly "popular" elements, ostensibly "lighter" tone, and smaller scale of Opus 33.77 In Opus 50 we see all the essential features of Classical quartet style (as we conceive it) united for the first time: the synthesis of the "serious" tone and large scale of Opus 20 with the popular style and lightly worn learning of Opus 33, together with the irrevocable placement of the minuet in third position and the new, and hence- forth standard, "songful" slow movement and weightier (but usually not "serious") finale. It therefore hardly seems accidental that Opus 50 also initiated Haydn's long second period of continuous produc- tion (1787-99).
Yet it would be as mistaken to erect Opus 50 as the newest "watershed" for the arrival of Classical quartet style as it was to single out Opus 33 in the first place. More accurate would be to think of the years 1781-87 as a kind of transition between early- Classical and mid-Classical chamber music. Many of the relevant stylistic features were present by 1781 (many, of course, made their appearance much earlier); many did not arise until the late 1780s. In a social and cultural sense too, the early eighties were transitional
76 Also noted independently by Finscher (MGG, XII, cols 1565-67). (The single quartet Opus 42 hardly qualifies as an "event" in this context. But if it were ever proved that the "lost" quartets for Spain had actually been written, this period would take on a (liflerent aspect: 1781, 1784-85, 1787.)
77 It is worth recalling here that, according to Pohl's quotation of August Ar- taria's recollection of his father's alleged conversation with Haydn, the latter wished the canon of his quartets to begin with Opus 9. But at least as far as the exclusion of the early quartets is concerned, the aged Haydn seems to have been a severer critic of his youthful works than we care to be today. (Pohl, I, 332; cf. Larsen, Die Haydn- Uberlieferung, pp. 147-48 and 151).
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years: between the restricted cultivation of chamber music entirely at court and among connoisseurs, and distributed almost entirely in
manuscript; and the newer chamber music disseminated primarily by printed editions and available to the general bourgeois public. Haydn's Opus 33 and Mozart's "Haydn" quartets, with their un-
precedented dedication to the composer's friend and colleague and hence, by implication, to the public itself, are the two central events of this transition.7S Afterwards, that is to say from Haydn's Opus 50 on, the Classical quartet was free to develop in its own way without
needing to force this issue. The essential point is that the search for "the" quartets which
attained "the" Classical style has blinded us in the past (and no doubt would continue to blind us) to the independent virtues of each individual opuis. My remarks here, of course, constitute the briefest possible sketch of Haydn's stylistic development; an ade-
quate survey must await many detailed studies as yet unwritten. But even before these are begun, we can specify the essential first step: let each opuis speak for itself.
78 The notion that Opus 33 represents "the" attainment of Classical quartet style derives not from any contemporary testimony but from Sandberger's essay "Zur Geschichte des Haydnschen Streichquartetts" (1900), reprinted in Ausgewahlte Auf- siitze, I, 224-65. For a strongly argued reaffimation of this view, see Finscher, Geschichte des Streichquartetts, Vol. I. On the social changes in Viennese chamber music in the early 1780s and their historical significance, see Webster, "Viennese Chamber Music," pp. 229-31.
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