Form

Theme (B major)

Notes

Haydn was capable of so many modes of expression: thrilling and intellectual sonatas, gallant delights with feints and surprises in the buffa manner, a hybrid of sturm und drang and learned counterpoint, and utterly heartfelt adagios. His craftsmanship and clarity stamps each with, first, a classic purity and, second, the fingerprint of Haydn himself. But that his music, in addition to its infinitely ponderable detail, speaks so directly to the heart is astonishing. But of course, it is fundamental to value of his art. Ratner, among others, emphasizes the fundamental dictum of expression pervasive in the classical period. Music of all periods and types (John Coltrane, Bessie Smith, Uma Kathum, Maria Callas, Beethoven, etc.) is cherished fundamentally for its emotional clarity, and beyond: for its power to move us in and out of that emotional space over time, showing us different nuances of that emotion or a series of emotional transitions. Music is emotion animate. Its power is in giving us an animated holigram of another's heart. Its vibrations animate our own emotional systems so that we resonate, in time, with the same movements. We become the music, and thereby, we become the very heart of another. This is fundamentally how we apprehend music, and why. How this is accomplished is the mystery. And it is the desire to apprehend these principles, like an unquenchable thirst, is the birth of theory, criticisim, musicology. It is the quest to fully ingest all meanings of our earsense. But I digress horribly.

This movement is high on the list of Haydn's profound creations. It is a miracle of emotional expression. It is daring, though certain futile, to transcribe the experience of hearing it into words, concepts, diagrams. Like all great art, the listening experience is a perfectly sculpted coherence that contrasts so sharply with the fractured, incomplete experience of daily consciousness; it is itself more real and specific than any description of it. But it is finite. It comes and goes. Other details demand our attention. Oftimes our mood, our preoccupations, our mind hold us from freely partaking again, a quality experience with Haydn. And we are left wanting a handle, a way back, a vivid memory. Perhaps to share the ephiphany with others. And so these words.

Spending the approximate 6.5 minutes its takes to hear Haydn "speak" is opening a portal to the divine. But it is also worth feeling it for something more simple than lofty adulation, more simple yet more miraculous: with 6.5 minutes of attentive compassion, you can feel that you know something of Haydn's own heart, living, breathing, somewhat like you feel about a very close friend, or even yourself. Haydn can be regarded as the father of the string quartet, a genial genius with a white powedered wig, a ruffled shirt, an admirable connection with the top eschalon of 18th century Europe, a giant of Western classical music, and so on. But he was also so much more (and less): he was a finite being with a sensitive human awareness that he chose to record for us to hear. He was a man endowed with extraordinay emotional eloquence. Or so i feel . . .

alternation: subject and darker 8th note minor interruption

full subject realization in fugal counterpoint