Early Haydn – Tetzlaff Quartett

Late Romanticism

At the end of 1779, Haydn's contract with the Esterházy family abolished the prohibition on distributing his work elsewhere. Haydn could now market his quartets opus 33 as 'new and special' compositions. The second quartet from that series, nicknamed 'The Joke', ends with confusing fragments of music. Alban Berg could also have called his String Quartet 'new and special': it is one of the first atonal quartets. Yet the twenty-six-year-old composer leans heavily on late Romanticism: Wagner and Mahler are never far away.

Does coincidence exist?

The young composing violinist Joseph Haydn – far from 'Papa', rather 'puppy' Haydn – played with three random other string players for the Viennese Count Von Fürnberg. I liked the coincidental harmony so much that Count asked Haydn for more repertoire for this combination. In the following works, Haydn laid the foundation for the string quartet, the medium that has given us so much beautiful music. In the Early Haydn concert series, the classical beauty of Haydn's Opus 33 is in the hands of a different quartet every morning.