ExclusiveHaydn: String Quartets, Op. 64, No. 5 In D Major, The Lark - II. Adagio, Cantabile

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 64, No. 5 In D Major, The Lark - II. Adagio, Cantabile. This beautiful piece was played by Musopen String Quartet. It has common licence (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal) and is provided through musopen.org.

The avian nickname of the famous No 5 in D major comes from the unforgettable winged melody high on the violin’s E string, played as a soaring descant to the pawky, staccato march for the lower three instruments that had opened proceedings. This allegro moderato is as closely argued as any of the movements in Op 64, yet creates an impression of marvellous spaciousness, thanks largely to the strategic recurrences of the ‘lark’ theme. At the opening of the development it reappears in a suave legato texture. Much later, after a recapitulation that, typically, develops as much as it resolves, the glorious melody makes a final, surprise, appearance, initiating a closing section that can be construed either as a coda or as a second recapitulation. As usual, Haydn defies easy categorization.

The adagio cantabile, in A major, is a glowing meditation, somewhere between an aria and a hymn. The minor-keyed central section draws poignant new meanings from the theme, while the return of the major is a cue for expressive embellishments from the first violin. As so often in Haydn, the minuet combines a peasant earthiness with sophisticated motivic development. Its pervasive rising scale is taken up in the furtive D minor trio, initially in counterpoint to a traditional chromatic descending ‘ground bass’.

This irreverent use of a Baroque technique finds an echo in the airy fugato at the centre of the finale, a gossamer moto perpetuo that tests any quartet’s ability to play with extreme delicacy at speed. This irresistible music was surely the prototype for Mendelssohn’s famous ‘fairy scherzos’.

Source: hyperion-records.co.uk

The video was captured by Christian Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.




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