The quartet opus 50 no. 1 opens with Haydn setting himself the challenge of creating an entire movement out of brief motifs and incomplete notions. The cello starts alone, trudging along on a single repeated pitch. When the other instruments enter, it is only to play a little “ender” gesture, just when one would expect a proper melody of decent length to be initiated. There is obviously humor in this approach, but at the same time we are being treated to a display of composer’s virtuosity, as we hear the delicate architecture of an extended form gradually taking shape.
The second movement is a set of variations on an elegant theme. Simplicity seems to be the focus here; however, Haydn being Haydn, he bases his theme not on periods of four bars (the usual, regular length), but rather six bars, so that we detect a gleam of something richer underlying this simple world. The variations are not ambitious — one with a first-violin descant, one minor and operatic, and one embellished from below by cello filigree — rather, this music is content to bask in its world of rhythmic grace and simple, glowing harmony.
The Minuet is humorous, full of Haydnesque energy, featuring a straightforward melody that is put through its paces, appearing in all possible registers, harmonized now from below, now from overhead, and finally on all sides.
The contrasting Trio section is, like much of the first movement, an exercise in minimalization: a cute, sparkling descending line in the first violin announces that, for a while, we will be dealing in only quarter-note rhythms, both in the melody and the accompaniment. Only at the very end of the Trio is the music permitted to branch out before the more robust main section of the Minuet returns.
The final movement has a clearly more active nature than its predecessors. In this busy, high-energy context, the composer indulges happily in an exchange between the voices: question and answer, rude interruption, amusing pauses and brilliant outbursts, all in an atmosphere of joyful congeniality. At the end the listener is being tested to make sure he is paying attention, and the movement closes triumphantly.
Here is the Verona Quartet to play this music for you:
