In a concluding section we analyze the final movement, comparing Haydn’s use of the compositional technique known as “fugue” to other fugues by Bach, Handel and Mozart. Lawrence Quartet, we explore the F-minor Quartet in terms of three complementary concepts: form, language, and gesture. With frequent musical illustrations by the St. In the second half, because the very essence of the genre resides in musical detail and nuance, we develop the tools for informed listening and appreciation by presenting an in-depth analysis of a single work, Haydn’s String Quartet in F minor, opus 20, no. In the first part of the course, after providing some general background on the origins of the medium in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, we look at some examples of early string quartet writing by Allegri, Scarlatti and early-period Haydn. This course, in defining the string quartet in these various ways, pays particular attention to Haydn’s towering, history-shaping achievement. And, as Haydn’s compositions amply demonstrate, the medium of the string quartet can also lend itself to the expression of wit and humor. For the audience, Goethe wrote, a quartet performance is like “listening to four rational people conversing among themselves.” Reflecting aesthetic sensibilities commonly associated with the genre in the Enlightenment age of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the conversation metaphor nicely captures two defining features of the genre: its intimate, personal nature as well as its capacity to convey profound musical thought through the essential ingredients of four-part harmony and counterpoint. The German poet Goethe described the quartet in terms of a musical conversation. Technique and expression go hand in hand. As developed by Haydn, the quartet became the preferred vehicle through which composers ever since, from Mozart to John Adams, have honed and displayed their compositional craft. It is Haydn’s compositions for the medium above all - he composed 68 of them - that established the formal conventions and aesthetic values that secured the string quartet a special status and significance in Western musical culture. Thanks to Joseph Haydn, the acknowledged father of the string quartet, the medium evolved into a genre.
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