To paraphrase Professor Bruce Lamott, Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763-1850) was the "Zelig" of music history. Like the lead character of Woody Allen's movie Zelig, Gyrowetz was everywhere and knew everyone worth knowing. He was born in the Bohemian town of Budweis, then part of the Austrian Habsburg empire and today known as Budějovice in the Czech Republic. He is sometimes, though not often, known by the Czech form of his name, Vojtěch Jírovec. He studied violin and voice with his father, a choirmaster. Gyrowetz traveled throughout Europe, residing for periods in Vienna, Paris, London, Rome, Naples, and several other major European cities. Among his friends and acquaintances were Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Goethe, and Napoleon, to name but a few. His style closely resembles that of Haydn, and several of his symphonies were published under Haydn's name by unscrupulous publishers trying to make an extra buck. Mozart thought enough of Gyrowetz's symphonies to perform several of them at concerts in Vienna. Gyrowetz, like most of his contemporaries, was a prolific composer writing some 400 works, among them 60 symphonies and hundreds of chamber works, including approximately 60 string quartets. While today, he has been forgotten and his music consigned to oblivion, this was not always the case. A close friend of both Haydn and Beethoven--he was a pallbearer at Ludwig's funeral--his music was held in high regard and frequently performed on the same programs with theirs throughout Europe and even in North America.
The String Quartet in c minor, Op.42 No.3 was the last of a set of three published in 1802 by the firm of Gombart in Augsburg as Op.42. Like several of his contemporaries such as Boccherini and Pleyel, Gyrowetz's quartets were quite popular in his day and were published by different firms in different countries and were often given different opus numbers. Although these quartets were originally published in Augsburg as Op.42, two other firms, Andre in Offenbach and Sieber in Paris, published a set of three different quartets calling them Op.42, despite the fact that they were originally published in Vienna as Op.29. If this were not confusing enough, in 1804 the firm of Andre reprinted the Gombart Op.42 quartets titling them Op.56 and putting the three quartets in a different order from the Gombart edition!
The Quartet is in three movements, lacking a menuetto. The opening bars of the big first movement, Allegro moderato, are quite somber, almost funereal. Then suddenly, sonic explosions interrupt the mood, after which the music becomes very energetic, jovial, and almost celebratory. The middle movement, Andante, has the feel of a stately, leisurely serenade. Then, as in the first movement, a thunderburst of sound (a Gyrowetz hallmark of which he was fond) briefly interrupts the proceedings, after which the tempo picks up and the mood changes. The energetic finale, Allegro assai, is lively and full of forward motion, making a suitable denouement to this fine Quartet.
This quartet is not only historically important because it sheds light on what other than important composers were doing at the time in Vienna, but also because it is pleasing to play and hear. Our new edition is based on the 1804 Andre reprint. It was edited by Janet Linnell and Jan Novak.