Critical Comparison Of Two Recordings (op. 76, No. 4 Quartet By Joseph Haydn)

The Op. 76 set of quartets of Haydn was composed at the very end of the 18th century, after he spent two years in London. He was already a free man. Although all these quartets are very popular we have little information about them. The autograph score with Haydn`s signature and the date are lost. The copies that Elssler, the principal copyist of Haydn, made don't contain dates. Although at first glance all these details do not seem important, it makes it extremely hard to create a reliable, satisfying performance in term of performance practise.

The Op. 76 set of quartets, written at the same time as the Creation, are mature works of Haydn. He invented the "universal schprache" musical language which addressed not only a part of the society, but everyone, no matter what their level of knowledge was or their place in society. This is an important reason why the 4 movements have to have the perfect balance . In the Sunrise Quartet the heaviest movement is the second, maybe this is the reason why Haydn doesn't repeat the second half of the first movement. When we compare the 3rd movement to other dance movements of it's time we can see it's the monumental attributes. The finale is a playful dancelike movement. From this point of view the recording of the Kodály Quartet (K. Q.) is a bit flat, I don't feel the natural line through the whole piece, also the characters of each movement are not as different as on the recording of the Festetics Quartet (F. Q.)

Haydn had his own musical language. It would be a big mistake to play Haydn's music in a general Viennese classical style. In a way he was opposite of Mozart. He didn't compose opera like arias for the violin or for any other instrument. His instrumental music was accommodated to the technical abilities of the individual instrument, and uses all their effects and capacities on a very wide scale. The F. Q. uses these abilities of the instrument very bravely. Many times Haydn uses the same dynamic for long time without changing the intensity of the music. In the first movement from bar 33 there are 6 fortissimo bars. In F. Q. playing we can feel the tension and the energy through the 6 bars. In K. Q. after bar 33 there is already no sign of fortissimo. Bar 44 is a place where we find syncopations and sforzando markings. K. Q. is not brave enough. The rhythmic formula is not so interesting. In bar 52 and 53 the grace notes cause problems for the K. Q. They play the following quaver long and this is simply not in style whilst the F. Q., correctly, plays it short. I would like to mention a grace note example from the beginning. In bar 10 the grace note should be long, because it is on a longer note in a singing place. K. Q. plays it sort, F. Q. plays it long. The K. Q. plays the trill incorrectly. In this period the trill was played from above with one exception, when the trill is in the middle of a scale and under slur. For the F. Q. this place is in style too. Another important place is the last bar of the first part of the minuet where the dynamic is ff. K. Q. does not make enough difference between the original f and the ff. I imagine that the edition that they are playing from is not correct. F. Q. plays ff and makes enough difference. The trio is full with sforzandos on heavy beats and also on not heavy beats. F. Q. plays extreme enough, for the K. Q. the accents melt in the texture. We can say the same about the grace notes in the last movement. Also with K. Q. there is not enough difference in character between the 1th and the 2nd theme.

The balance between the movements relates very much to the tempi. The biggest problem is that the metronome was not known to Haydn . With the first movement there is no particular problem. Both groups find the optimal speed for the opening phrase. The second movement is more problematic. In the K. Q. recording I miss the dancelike roots, and it feels clumsy and stuck in one place. The tempo of the F. Q. feels very fresh but at the same time we always know that it's a slow movement. The K. Q. who are playing on modern instruments, start a very slow tempo. F. Q. recognised that this is a Ländler like minuet which indicates a faster speed. In this way the minuet can release the tension which was created by the slow movement. In the finale, both group recognised that the movement is not of the very fast virtuoso kind but rather the playful and creative Haydn last movement. At the end of the piece the F. Q. in the piu allegro and in the piu presto successfully keep the playful character with some added virtuosity, but in the recording of K. Q. the virtuoso side becomes more important and the playful character simply gets lost.

The pulse of the music is maybe even more important than the tempo. This determinates what we feel is fast or slow in a given tempo. In the first movement there are two kind of pulse: the half bar and the whole bar. The beginning of the piece is in one bar pulse until the 21st bar where it changes to a half bar pulse. This game between the two different themes is continues throughout the whole movement. K. Q. is not strict enough with these changes if they are doing at all. The F. Q. is very clear at each change, and in this way the whole movement is interesting, and the audience don't get bored. In the second movement we must know that if in the music of Haydn a 'non-dance' movement is in ¾ or 6/8 there will still be a connections to the minuet . The F. Q. uses the typical 2 bars units like in a minuet so we don't feel heaviness at all. K. Q. uses the 2 bars unit as well but without the dance like character the whole movement trudges along. In the minuet the lively 2 bars units keep the attention of the audience, also the rhythmic interest in the trio becomes very articulated arresting. On the recording of K. Q. we almost don't hear anything of this. Without the 2 bars units the movement feels very static and too long. When I'm listening this I have a feeling that it's a party for the elephants! K. Q. makes a dance movement from the finale apart from the coda which feels like a horse race. For them the basic pulse is one bar through the end. The F. Q. changes the pulse many times so they avoid to making it boring, the middle part doesn't feel slow even though it's slower, and the coda stays playful even though is faster.

The Sunrise quartet is not so problematic in the term of repeats. K. Q. makes the usual mistake and they don't repeat the minuet after the trio.

The vibrato was always an important issue, especially since the historical informed playing has started to become more and more important. Personally I do not understand why. If we check the opinion of the major characters of the string history from Leopold Mozart to Leopold Auer everybody studiously said that the vibrato is an important tool in term of expression, just we have to find the way to use it in a sophisticated way, not like a bell ring for example. Comparing the two recordings for the first listening we could say, that F. Q. doesn't use vibrato. This is not true at all. Their vibrato is accommodating much more to the expectations of Haydn's style. K. Q. uses the vibrato to create more beautiful sound. F. Q. don't vibrate on passing notes, the range of their vibrato is very wide from the fast, narrow vibrato in bar 2-4th in first violin, to the slow, wide vibrato also in the first violin from bar 16. Obviously the K. Q. who plays on modern instrument uses vibrato much more often, this is the reason why there is not enough variety of the expression. The second movement as a slow movement is crucial in term of vibrato. In the choral like start F. Q. puts only a tiny vibrato on the notes to make them alive. In bar 2 and 4 there is a crescendo-decrescendo which is an affect from the baroque, the mezza voce. F. Q. expresses this with the bow. In bar 18, 19 they use vibrato again to do the accents. K. Q. uses vibrato all the time, in bar 2 and 4 also. The result of the concept what demands continuous vibrato makes the audience tired after a few bars also the accents, like in bar 18, 19, they simply not able to get enough attention.

Which one is better, historical or modern instrument? The F. Q. is a group who uses historical instruments. There tuning is flatter. The "imperfect" instruments are the result of the talent of Haydn makes the way easier to the successful performance in term of performance practise. The balance between the instruments is naturally clearer. In K. Q.'s case the sound of the individual instruments are too similar and boomy, rather than delicate. We can say that if we stick to Haydn's own musical language, being aware of the extreme dynamics, accents and different effects, first and last the historical instruments are much more able to create the optimal sound for what this kind of music demands.

Unfortunately we tend to not be aware enough for specific musical language of each individual composer. Here I'm talking about the different writing as well. Different markings can have completely different meaning in different composer's music, and as a result it doesn't mean too much to play from urtext edition. The musicians of Haydn time were mostly well educated people, he could trust in their instinct and taste. As a result he didn't have to mark every single detail about the way of performing. At the time when these 2 quartets recorded the op. 76 set of Haydn quartets, there was no well researched edition available , and as a result the level of the recording in term of performance practise depended on the groups own research. The recording of K. Q. was made in 1988. Unfortunately it's just one of many without any historical research. We get a picture much more about the general Viennese classical style rather than about Haydn himself. F.Q. made a historically very important recording as a result of their collaborative research with László Somfai. This recording can be an example of Haydn interpretation for the next generations.

Bibliography

Auer, Leopold. Violin Playing As I Teach. New York: Dover Publications, 1980. Haydn, Joseph. 'Haydn-Sunrise Quartet op. 76 no. 4'.< http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kod%C3%A1ly+quartet+haydn+sunrise&oq=kod%C3%A1ly+quartet+haydn+sunrise&gs_l=youtube.3...8126.18035.0.18116.28.25.0.2.2.0.414.2332.21j1j1j1j1.25.0...0.0...1ac.1.ng_bDn3Wdhg> Haydn, Joseph. String Quartet No. 63 in B flat major ("Sunrise"), Op. 76/4, H. 3/78. Festetics Quartet. Arcana, 1999.

Mozart, Leopold. A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing 2nd ed., trans. Editha Knocker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951. Somfai, László. Joseph Haydn String Quartets, Linear Notes. Somfai, László. A Haydn-interpretáció problémái: széljegyzetek az "Erdõdy-kvartettek" új magyar hanglemezfelvételéhez, page 483. - 496, Magyar Zene, 1965.