String Quartet, Op. 54 No. 2, Hob. III:57

1. 0:00
   Five-bar phrases and general pauses

   The first violin plays a phrase above held notes, and then the whole quartet stops. Haydn writes phrases five bars long and pauses for all four players, so the silences also fall outside a regular four-bar pattern.

2. 1:02
   Johann Tost in Paris, 1788

   Johann Tost left the Esterházy orchestra in 1788 and took six new Haydn quartets to Paris, among them Op. 54. He arranged their publication with Sieber, and his name has stayed attached to the music.

3. 1:36
   Opening of the development

   After the close in G major, the first violin restates its opening phrase loudly. The lower strings change the chords beneath it, and the development takes the figure through new keys.

4. 2:18
   Recapitulation in C major

   The first violin restates its opening phrase in C major. Beneath it the cello’s A♭ returns, as at the start, so Haydn brings back the interruption with the theme.

5. 2:42
   Rosemary Hughes on the first violin

   The first violin has an unusually prominent role in all twelve Tost quartets. Rosemary Hughes considered this quartet’s first movement the best example, “with its bold, striding gestures and big sonorities”, and wrote that the virtuosity gives the music “fire and eloquence”.

6. 3:05
   Second group in C major

   The second-group tune, marked piano dolce and first heard in G major, returns in C major.

7. 3:45
   Tel Aviv Museum of Art, May 2015

   The Danish String Quartet played this at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in May 2015, and the museum’s music channel filmed the concert. Three of the players met as children at a summer camp for amateur musicians, where they played football and chamber music. The Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin joined them in 2008.

Joins

1. 1:36
   End of exposition into development

   The exposition closes quietly in G major. The first violin restarts its opening phrase forte over sustained lower strings. Altered notes in the accompaniment move the harmony away from G, and the opening phrase returns before the music settles in a new key.

2. 2:18
   Return of the opening over C and A♭

   The bass holds G, and the first violin then brings back the opening phrase in C major. A few bars later the cello moves to A♭, and the harmony that first sounded beneath that phrase returns.

1. 0:00
   Chorale with first violin, C minor

   The second violin, viola and cello play a slow melody in C minor. Above them the first violin plays quick, elaborate flourishes.

2. 0:56
   First violin over chorale accompaniment

   The lower instruments hold their notes while the first violin plays an ornamental line above them. Its turns and leaps run across the chords. The accompaniment keeps a steady pace.

3. 1:16
   Johann Tost in Paris, 1788

   In late 1788 Johann Tost travelled to Paris with six new Haydn quartets and two symphonies. Until March of that year he had been principal second violin in the Esterházy orchestra. In Paris he did business with the publisher Sieber.

4. 1:50
   Rosemary Hughes on Op. 54 No. 2

   Haydn’s biographer Rosemary Hughes described the first violin breaking into “impassioned arabesques above the dark and brooding melody, in the manner of a wild Hungarian lament”. The first violin has an unusually prominent role in all twelve of the Tost quartets, Opp. 54, 55 and 64.

5. 2:30
   Ending and attacca to the minuet

   The closing passage is marked morendo, dying away. The movement ends on a held G in C minor, under a fermata. Haydn marks it attacca, and the C major minuet follows without a break.

1. 0:00
   Minuet in C major, attacca

   Haydn joins the Adagio to this C major minuet without a pause. After the violin line of the slow movement, the four players begin a dance marked Allegretto.

2. 1:30
   Trio in C minor

   The Trio turns to C minor, the Adagio’s key. All four instruments play the same melody in unison, and augmented chords intervene.

3. 1:50
   Precedent in Op. 20 No. 2

   Haydn had already linked a slow movement and minuet this closely in the C major Quartet, Op. 20 No. 2. Here the Trio also takes up the Adagio’s C minor, so material from the earlier movement returns within the dance.

4. 2:30
   Return of the minuet

   Menuetto da capo sends the quartet back to the beginning. The minuet returns in C major, with the first violin leading. It ends with its rising scale and final chords.

5. 3:00
   Finale: Adagio, Presto, Adagio

   The finale is a second Adagio, with a Presto in its middle. Laurie Shulman wrote that the two slow movements shift “the entire balance and emotional weight” of the quartet.

Joins

1. 1:30
   Rising scales, then the C minor Trio

   Rising scales carry all four instruments to the minuet’s fortissimo close in C major. The Trio changes the key signature to three flats and begins in C minor, with all four players sharing the melody. The cello plays the tune with the others and has no separate bass line.

2. 2:30
   Trio returns to the Menuetto

   The Trio ends in C minor. The direction Menuetto D.C. sends the players straight back to the C major opening. The first violin takes the tune again, and the other three resume their accompaniment. The rising scales now lead to the Fine and the end of the movement.

1. 0:00
   Opening Adagio of the finale

   The finale begins slowly, with the two violins phrasing together above the viola and cello. The quartet already has one Adagio. Haydn adds a second and places the Presto between the two slow sections.

2. 1:12
   Repeated semiquavers, inner parts

   The second violin and viola repeat their notes in semiquavers. Above them the first violin plays short phrases, and the cello has a moving line of its own.

3. 2:22
   Letter to Sieber, 5 April 1789

   On 5 April 1789 Haydn wrote to the Paris publisher Sieber about Tost, the man carrying his music: “And did he also sell you the 6 quartets, and for what sum?” Tost’s business dealings made Haydn anxious.

4. 3:35
   Publication, Paris and London, 1789

   Sieber published the six quartets in Paris in June 1789, as Opp. 54 and 55. Longman and Broderip’s London parts followed in July 1789 and January 1790, marked “Performed at the Professional Concert Hanover Square 1789”. Haydn was supplying that series with new music at the time.

5. 4:10
   Laurie Shulman on the finale

   Laurie Shulman called this finale, with its second Adagio, an experiment that “foreshadows the late quartets of Beethoven and even the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler”. A Presto stands in the middle, in the manner of a conventional finale, and the Adagio then returns.

6. 5:00
   Presto in C major

   The Presto begins in C major. The two violins play together over off-beat notes in the cello, and the viola enters later. Haydn interrupts the fast music with general pauses for all four players.

7. 5:54
   Return of the Adagio

   After the Presto’s emphatic chords, the Adagio returns with its opening phrase. The movement ends with this slow music.

8. 6:35
   Final Adagio, closing chord

   The last Adagio grows quieter until the four players reach the final C major chord, marked pianissimo. The word Fine stands beneath it.

Joins

1. 5:00
   A fermata, then the Presto

   The Adagio ends pianissimo on a chord held under a fermata. The three-flat key signature is then cancelled and the Presto begins in C major. The violins play together, the cello plays off the beat and the viola rests. The held chord is the only thing between the two tempos. No connecting run joins them.

2. 5:54
   Presto chords and return of Adagio

   Repeated accented chords bring the Presto to a fermata. Haydn writes Adagio again, and the first violin plays the opening phrase again, with its rests and grace notes. The return stays in C major and is much shorter than the first Adagio.