The movements of this work by Josef Haydn are as follows:
Allegro moderato
Minuetto
Adagio
Finale: Fuga a due soggetti
The key of F minor was Haydn’s key of choice to express his darkest and most potent thoughts. This is one of his most powerful movements in any of his compositions. There is a moment of respite from the brooding opening music with a second theme in smiling major, but when this music returns later it’s back in F minor with devastating effect. The two themes are jammed together in the coda, distilling the essence of the movement with a dramatic conclusion.
The darkness continues with a frustrated and angry minuet. The trio arrives as a ray of sunlight in F major.
The adagio is a simple cavatina, the kind that a minstrel might strum and sing under the balcony of his beloved.
The last movement, a fugue, returns to F minor and demonstrates that Haydn knew and loved Handel’s oratorio Messiah. The first of the two subjects is stolen from the chorus, ”And with his stripes we are healed.”
Here is the Juilliard Quartet, performing this music. Listen carefully for the third movement, “Adagio”. My personal favorite:
