String Quartet in C major, Op. 76 No. 3 “Emperor”: II. Poco adagio
Joseph Haydn
Recording
Quatuor Mosaïques
- Album
- Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 76
- Year
- 2000
- Length
- Period
- Classical era
- Listen
Painting
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Prater Landscape, c. 1831
The piece
Haydn wrote the hymn “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” for Emperor Franz II's birthday in February 1797 and made it the theme of this movement, in the third of six quartets commissioned that year by Count Joseph Erdődy. The melody is stated plainly, then given whole to the second violin, cello and viola in turn against new counter-melodies, and in the fourth variation it returns to the first violin with new harmonies.
The recording
Quatuor Mosaïques recorded the quartet on period instruments at the Casino Zögernitz in Vienna in January 2000. In a five-star review for BBC Music Magazine, Richard Wigmore wrote that if confined to a single version of Op. 76 he would “plump for the Mosaïques.”
Other recordings
The Lindsays on ASV and the London Haydn Quartet on Hyperion have also recorded the complete Op. 76.