Joseph Haydn wrote his six opus 20 quartets in 1772, when he was forty years old. At that time he had been the court composer to Count Esterhazy for twelve years, and was to fill that position for a total of thirty.
Reportedly Haydn had been married to a woman with whom he did not get along. His escape to the Esterhazy estate was a great blessing for music lovers who were born during the following 200+ years…
“I was completely secluded from the world,” he said of those years, so that “nobody was nearby who could distract me or confuse me about myself; in this way I became original.”
As I write this today, I am listening to the Haydn Quartet Opus 20, number 5. What a joy that is!!!
Here is the St. Lawrence Quartet, performing the quartet Opus 20, number 3:
