4 - Genesis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2009
Summary
Composition
From 1781 thoughts of the string quartet can never have been far from Haydn's mind. The Op. 33 set in fact received a sort of ‘command performance’ on Christmas Day of that year, in the apartments of Maria Feodorovna, wife of the Russian Grand Duke Paul. The royal couple was paying a visit to Vienna, and the attention thus given to Haydn can only have confirmed his newly-found sense of status in the musical and social world. The Prefiburger Zeitung recorded the occasion thus (the Duke and Duchess travelled under the name ‘von Norden’):
… We must add to our report of the concert given in Countess von Norden's rooms on December [25th] that the music was by the princely Esterhazy Kapellmeister, the famous Herr Hayden [sic], and that the quartet played on that occasion was performed by Messrs. Luigi Tomasini, Apfelmayr [Franz Aspelmayr], Weigl and [Thaddäus] Huber. It was received with gracious applause by the illustrious audience, who were pleased to present Herr Haydn, as composer, with a magnificent enamelled golden box set with brilliants, and each of the other four musicians with a golden snuff-box.
A still more significant result of the appearance of these works was that they prompted another composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, to resume his efforts in the genre after a gap of nearly a decade (as was the case with Haydn). After being dismissed from the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1781, Mozart had moved to Vienna, although when he first became acquainted with Haydn is unclear.
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- Information
- Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 50 , pp. 28 - 36Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992