Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 76 Nos. 1-6 (complete)

2CDs for price of 1

Op.76, Haydn’s last complete set of string quartets, is also his manifesto for posterity. This is the penultimate recording in the Auryn series (Vol. 13 of 14)

Volume 11 in the Buchberger Quartet’s cycle of the complete Haydn quartets for Brilliant Classics.

Haydn’s six quartets published as his Op.76 in 1799, and composed three years earlier, astonished listeners and commentators alike. How on earth could a man advanced in years keep producing such extraordinary music, and show no sign of his creative faculties diminishing? No less a person than Charles Burney was taken aback by the stunning originality and daring of the Op.76 quartets. Writing to Haydn in 1799 he said ‘I’ve never received more pleasure from instrumental music: they are full of invention, fire, good taste, and new effects, and seem the production, not of a sublime genius who has written so much and so well already, but of one of highly-cultivated talents, who had expended none of his fire before.’

There was no doubt that Haydn had bettered his previous quartets. New in the Op.76 was the appearance of a distinctly Beethovenian scherzo. It is perhaps worth noting that just before Haydn completed these quartets, Beethoven had been his unruly pupil. The young man’s Op.1 trios, Op.18 quartets, and maybe the early drafts of the 1st Symphony, would have been known to Haydn, and, ever curious to develop new ideas, Haydn would have been attracted to the scherzo.

The remarkable vision and scope of these quartets has placed them firmly among the greatest in the repertoire. The public has also embraced them, and the nicknames of some of them will be instantly recognisable to listeners – ‘Fifths’, ‘Emperor’ and ‘Sunrise’. The ‘Sunrise’ No.4, has been described by H.C. Robbins Landon as having one ‘of the greatest openings in chamber music’, and the Fantasia slow movement of No.6 as’ one of the boldest and most original movements in the whole eighteenth century’.

The Amadeus Quartet were the world's favourite string quartet from the 1950s to the 1980s, especially associated with the Viennese classics. For the Haydn anniversary of 2009, this set brings together all the Amadeus's Haydn recordings, which comprises the complete sequence of works from op. 51 (Seven Last Words on the Cross) through to op 103 (the final unfinished quartet)

A major recording project that will receive extensive review coverage in the major magazines.

Comprehensive booklet essay on the music, the interpretations, sources and research.

Haydn’s string quartets span his creative life – from the 1750s and the Opp. 1&2 sets through to his last unfinished quartet in D minor Op.103 of 1803. When the first quartets were written Bach had been dead only a few years and Handel had five years to live. When the last quartet was being worked on, Beethoven had finished his ground breaking Third Symphony. Arguably, Haydn’s greatest contribution to music is as the father of the string quartet rather than his oftgiven title as ‘Father of the Symphony’. His quartets developed from divertimenti and cassations, which were little more than light music for the entertainment of wealthy patrons and royalty, to some of the most profound and visionary music by any composer. In the same way as Bach’s ‘48’ have been described as a summation of all that had gone before, and the major influence upon all that would follow, Haydn’s quartets chart the development of the medium from ‘background’ music of high quality, to the major art form of the later works. They influenced Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schoenberg and beyond spanning the end of the Baroque, the Classical period in its entirety and the beginning of the Romantic age.

During his lifetime, the world had seen huge social and political upheavals – the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars which had been fought across Europe (reflected upon in ‘Mass in Time of War, and the Nelson Mass), and the foundation of the United States of America in 1776. Acutely aware of the politics of his age, Haydn’s development as a composer reflects these turbulent times.

Any cycle of the Haydn String Quartets is a major achievement. The Buchberger Quartet’s interpretations are based on scrupulous research into sources – both contemporaneous and modern, and interpretational style – dynamics, repeats and tempi. This complete recorded cycle is the culmination of a five-year project which has seen the Buchbergers perform all the quartets with illustrated talks and introductions to each work.