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When we confront a composer who wrote around 80 quartets, tradition really does matter. Music cannot live on the page, it needs to be heard. The Viennese have played Haydn consistently, letting audiences judge for themselves. When Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. gave his inaugural quartet concert on 4 November 1849, he was already drawing on more than half a century of precious tradition. The first notes heard in public from his ensemble were those of the C major Quartet, op. 76 no. 3, nicknamed the 'Emperor' for Haydn's use of his Austrian national anthem tune in its variations. The Hellmesberger group played at least 20 Haydn quartets at its subscription concerts; and its successor the Ros� Quartet managed around two dozen. The Fitzner Quartet covered the entire cycle in the years around the start of the Great War; and the Busch Quartet, a fixture at the Konzerthaus from its opening in 1913 until 1936, presented more than 30 works on its worldwide tours.The Konzerthaus Quartet, which followed straight on from the Busch at the famous building, not only played and broadcast an enormous amount of Haydn but left recordings of 44 works including the composer's own quartet version of the Seven Last Words.
Elsewhere, Haydn suffered grievous neglect for more than a century. Professional quartet ensembles played a few token pieces, usually including the F major 'Serenade' from op. 3, which some of today's scholarly killjoys have exiled from the canon, even though Haydn himself seemed happy to have op. 3 in his catalogue. When an attempt was made to record the cycle on 78rpm discs in the 1930s, the Quatuor Pro Arte of Brussels told a deliberate fib to get the contract, saying they played all the quartets when they knew only op. 76. They then found themselves sight-reading op. 20 no. 2 at the first sessions. Another bid to record the full sequence was made by the Haydn Society in the 1950s, but to date just four ensembles have completed the feat: the Aeolian Quartet of London and Kodaly Quartet of Budapest (both of whom included op. 3), as well as the Tatrai Quartet of Budapest and Angeles Quartet of Los Angeles.
The Amadeus, which amazingly ran from 1947 to the death of Peter Schidlof in 1987, only the Beethoven of Moscow did better, going 41 years with its original members, had an honourable track record in Haydn long before these legendary performances were taped by Deutsche Grammophon. Beginning as the Brainin Quartet, the young men showed they were aware of their place in the tradition by trying out the title London Vienna Quartet before hitting on the inspired 'Amadeus'. Leader Norbert Brainin was an out-and-out Viennese; second violinist Siegmund Nissel, born in Munich, was of Viennese parentage and lived in the Austrian capital from the age of nine; violist Schidlof was from the Austrian outpost of Mudling; and cellist Martin Lovett, born and bred in Britain, was also of immigrant stock. "We always played Haydn," says Lovett, sole survivor of the four. "And in fact the only composer I play now is Haydn. I have two friends with whom I make up a trio and three young people with whom I play quartets." The Amadeus's third recording session, back in 1951, was devoted to the 'Emperor'; and the 1963 version included here was famed in the LP era. In 1982 they recorded it a third time, in digital sound. "We played all the late quartets," says Lovett, "and we did some of the early ones, including the 'Serenade', which I am sure was written by Haydn, if it wasn't Haydn, who was it?" The Amadeus championed op. 9 no. 3, an excellent work with a strangely disturbing slow movement; and Lovett recalls performing the F minor and A major from op. 20. "We did the 'Joke' from op. 33, and it's a good joke, that still works. In fact Haydn's the only artist whose humour is as actual today as it was in his own time. Even Shakespeare's humour hasn't worn as well." Lovett enjoys the humour in Mozart's Musical Joke, "because everything's wrong in it", but finds Haydn more purely witty.
The Amadeus foursome recorded all of Mozart's quartet music but there was no chance that they would get through all of Haydn's. Even so, they achieved 40 Haydn recordings including a live 'Fifths', op. 76 no. 2, from the Wigmore Hall. Of the performances in this box, nine are repeat versions of works done earlier in mono sound. "We learnt some quartets specially for the recordings,"� Lovett says. The Amadeus Haydn style is full-toned, vibrant, rhythmically vivacious and brimming over with personality, although the players restrain their natural exuberance in the slow movements, especially important in op. 51, which is virtually all solemn. Haydn had exceptional quartet leaders in mind when he wrote the other 29 works: opp. 54, 55 and 64 were associated with a slightly dodgy character called Johann Tost who, whatever failings he may have had as a man, must have been a superb violinist. For opp. 71, 73, 76 and 77, Haydn had public performances in mind, rather than chamber soir'es, and Johann Peter Salomon's fine violinism inspired their virtuosity. Norbert Brainin of the Amadeus, one of the most distinctive leaders of his time, revelled in such effects as the gypsy-style elaborations in the Adagio of op. 54 no. 2 or the unorthodox variations in the first movement of op. 55 no. 2. The individual qualities of the Amadeus members can be clearly heard in the variations of the 'Emperor', although the style is so homogeneous that it helps to follow the music with the score.
Tully Potter
