Haydn! (Random Reviews from the Overflow Room 15)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hello, friends. This is Dave Hurwitz, executive editor at classics today.com here with random reviews from the overflow room.

[00:00:12]And we are still working on Haydn and in this video we have nothing but string quartets. We have a pretty good clump [music] of string quartets.

[00:00:21]Um, first, actually these have now all come out in a box. But before they were not in a box. The Festetics Quartet complete Haydn series um, on Arcana. Very, very good performances on period instruments.

[00:00:36]Uh, I I enjoy them very much. I still listen to them quite frequently and they're sitting upstairs in their box.

[00:00:43]But these were some of the singleton releases and so I had them I had like extra copies of some of these. Some of these are still in their their plastic because I had the individual ones upstairs, too. Uh, so we've got uh, what do we got here? Opus 33 and 42.

[00:01:01]Um, collection complete day quatuor.

[00:01:03]Yeah, that's what they are. I Unfortunately, they mean the way they they listed these like the way they were in Haydn's day. So this is uh, oeuvre four and five, Artaria. But they're actually opus 33 and opus 42. So opus 33 are the schertzi quartets, the ones where the minuets are replaced by schertzi schertzos. They are the pieces that inspired Mozart to dedicate his quartets to Haydn. His six. And these are really, really fun pieces. You've got the joke and the bird or one of those bird things in there and it's all this other stuff. They're delightful and funny and warm and charming and just amazing. And then we've got uh, opus 42.

[00:01:48]Um, which is known as number 43 in the Hoboken catalogs.

[00:01:55]It's enough to make you crazy, but and actually the quartets are rather easy to categorize. They're easy to organize. There's what? 68 and a half of them or something. Anyway, these are fun. Fun, fun, fun. 42 is the razor. It's a short, charming little work, singleton work that Haydn wrote reportedly for, you know, you know, give me a good razor and I'll give you my latest quartet. That was the joke.

[00:02:19]Sure that that's not how it actually worked out. So, that's that one.

[00:02:23]Then we have oh, Opus 17.

[00:02:26]Now, Opus 17, Opus 17 is a transitional set.

[00:02:31]The opera 9 and 17 were the ones, you know, Haydn's quartets fall call come in a big clump. We've talked about this.

[00:02:37]There are the 10 early quartet divertimenti, which are early works.

[00:02:42]Then he started working with the medium in a much more serious way. That is musically it was supposed to be more more, you know, they weren't light, fluffy things. They were serious pieces.

[00:02:53]And Opus 9 and 17 were extremely popular in Haydn's day. All of these were. Um and really popular. I mean, they circulated in copies all over the place.

[00:03:03]And today they're almost totally ignored because of course Haydn went on to write transcendentally sublimely great late quartets.

[00:03:12]And so they don't get quite the attention.

[00:03:15]But they are splendid works. They really are. And Opus 17 has some real masterpieces in it.

[00:03:21]And including the the D minor.

[00:03:25]Or is it C minor? Whatever one is.

[00:03:26]There's the D minor in Opus 9. I don't know, but there's there's there's great stuff. Trust me. Trust me when I tell you. They are beautiful works that definitely deserve a hearing. So, there they are.

[00:03:37]And then we've got the late ones.

[00:03:39]This is the big clump. We've got Opus 76, which they list here as Opus 75 and 76.

[00:03:47]But then it says can you come? Okay, known as. There we are. Opus 76 1 through 3 and Opus 76 4 through 6. They were originally issued as Opus 12 by Artaria. Is this helping anybody? No.

[00:04:02]And then the two quartets Opus 77 that were supposed to be a set of six, but Haydn couldn't complete them.

[00:04:09]Um he was too frail. Um and uh the two movements of Opus 103, his last completed music.

[00:04:16]Which is sad, but he did at least finish the inner movements, the slow movement, the scherzo.

[00:04:21]So there they are.

[00:04:23]The end of Haydn quartets on three discs with the Festetics Quartet. Again, very good performances, very enjoyable, beautifully recorded, and uh that's just some of it. You [snorts] know, the rest of them are all now in a box, so you can get them. Uh oh yeah, these two discs on Denon, Haydn quartets with the Carmina Quartet. The Carmina Quartet is one of the great string quartets.

[00:04:46]I mean they really were. I I they I don't know why they didn't make many records. They didn't last long. I don't know what what it was, but it was Matthias Enderle, uh Susan Frank, Wendy Champney, viola, and Stefan Görner, violoncello, or cello, just plain cello.

[00:05:01]They were wonderful. Um and they have these two discs on Denon.

[00:05:06]Uh we've got, let's see, they also did like Debussy and Ravel and Szymanowski, I think. And they were just fabulous.

[00:05:12]Uh let's see, we've got Opus 76 numbers 1 through 3, which gives you the Emperor, the Fifths, and number 1.

[00:05:20]And then here we've got Oh, this is all Opus 76 numbers 4 through 6. Yes, they did Opus 76.

[00:05:26]And here it is, Opus 76. Wonderful, wonderful performances on Denon. If you can get your hands on these, try.

[00:05:33]Um the price isn't too stupid, because they really were wonderful. Then [snorts] we've got Haydn with the Lindsays.

[00:05:40]This is Opus 20 with the Lindsays. Now Opus 20 is sort of the first great quartet series of the mature classical period. They were written during Haydn's Sturm und Drang period. So, you've got things with minor keys, you've got finales that are fugues, they've got all kinds of amazing stuff. The Lindsays, well, they're an acquired taste. You know, they tended to partake of the period instrument hack and slash and burn style before the period instrument movement started doing that regularly.

[00:06:14]Um and Peter Cropper, particularly, their first violin could be kind of wild and wayward in terms of intonation.

[00:06:20]Uh and so uh I I sometimes enjoy these and I sometimes don't. They tend to be raw and edgy, and Haydn could use some raw and edge. That he can. There's nothing wrong with that per se e- except when it's uh a quality that's pursued for its own sake. Then it gets to be a bit much. So, I I'm not a huge fan of the Lindsays. I I I keep them because I think they're interesting to hear by way of contrast.

[00:06:51]Um but in terms of, you know, fully realized conceptions of Haydn quartets, uh it's on again, off again. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The Opus 20s are pretty good, I think, on the whole.

[00:07:02]Anyway, there we have it. A bunch of Haydn quartets. We've got lots more to come, don't worry. Tons of them.

[00:07:08]Scads of fabulous fabulous fabulous music. So, keep on listening, friends. Thanks for joining me. Take care.