Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet in C major, Op. 33, No. 3, "Bird" , (1781)
Haydn’s Op. 33 set of six quartets goes by various nicknames: Russian (as they were dedicated to the Grand Duke of Russia), Maiden (due to an image on the title page of a Hummel edition), and Gli Scherzi (because the Menuetto dance movements were newly dubbed Scherzo). This last is one of several features scholars have posited to explain Haydn’s advertising pitch that these quartets were composed in a “new and special way.” Another innovation introduces the Rondo finale, a fast and often jolly genre that would become a Haydn specialty and an emerging standard for the string quartet and symphony. Compared with the previous Op. 20 set composed nine years earlier, the Op. 33 quartets sing with a fresh “lightness”, a warm joie de vivre many trace to the influence of Mozart as well as Haydn’s foray into comic opera. While Op. 20 was learned discourse for the court and connoisseur, Op. 33, packed with popular tunes, fluid textures, and humor, was for “the rest of us”. The publication of Op. 33 coincided with a new, more relaxed contract from Haydn’s Esterhazy employer: Haydn was now free to publish compositions for the general public, and on this occasion, he sought a much broader market. To some, these Op. 33 quartets represent the first true high-watermark of the Viennese Classical Style.
Many of Haydn’s individual string quartets also have nicknames due to their innovative stature and popularity, and are “tagged” after some distinctive musical evocation that identifies that particular favorite. Yet another, more subtle aspect of these new and special quartets is how they use themes and motives distributed throughout the quartet texture for a remarkable thematic continuity. Perhaps the most popular of the six, the “Bird” is named after the prominence of birdlike motives that chirp throughout the first and third movements flitting about the texture like a musical genetic marker. Even the finale arguably has an avian aspect.
In the sonata-form first movement, both themes feature bird sounds that saturate much of the texture throughout. These sounds are created from a repeated pair of notes, each with its own leading grace note forming a two-note “chirp.” The birdlike motives in the second-movement twitter in a moment of high relief in one of Haydn’s most innovative scherzi. The scherzo deploys all four strings together in their lowest registers, sotto voce (softly), in a distinctive choral unity where the more characteristically active quartet texture is absent. A lovely musical effect, but highly unusual for a scherzo; a perfect foil for the trio! For the vividly and humorously contrasting trio, the quartet reduces to a duo featuring the treble pair of violins entwined in a most birdlike dialogue.
The third-movement adagio is slow and beautiful without a hint of birdsong. It gracefully traces a simple song form featuring the warm, subdominant key of F Major with standard modulations to its dominant, the quartet’s home key of C Major. The song refrain occurs three times, with the second repetition adorned with decorative filigree from the first violin in variation, followed by a brief “development” that intensifies with a shift to C minor, preparing for the release of tension with the final unadorned refrain.
The Rondo finale, marked presto, is a romp, swift, short, and breathtaking. Characteristic of classical rondo forms, it features a recurring refrain separated by contrasting episodes. The main theme is bright, animated, and arguably birdlike both in sound and motion, a twittering, frolicking foursome. The main contrasting episode shifts to a darker minor mode with perhaps just a hint of “Gypsy” dance that Haydn so often used. The conclusion features some wonderful rhythmic and textural play, again like birds in flight. Curiously, the movement ends simply and suddenly without the slightest hint of cadential fanfare.
