"Learned Style" in Two Late String Quartet Movements of Haydn

Abstract

The scholarly literature on the music of Joseph Haydn is still surprisingly unbalanced. Compared to the intensive study of the sources and the biographical data the investigation of Haydn's style and his masterpieces lags behind and is far less significant and extensive apart from the Konzertfiihrer literature and popular books, of course. All of this results from the very special history of Haydn scholarship. Consider the following facts: ( 1 ) The foremost predominant collection of sources, the Esterhazy Archive, was a closed private collection up to the 1950s hardly letting anybody, not even renowned specalists work with the manuscripts. (2) The classical Haydn monograph of the 19th century (Pohl), as a matter of fact an unfinished work for a long time, was much too biography oriented. This book was neither a Spitta nor a Jahn of the subject and was unfortunately not followed by a Gesamtauwgabe in the first wave of complete editions which could have stimulated the extensive study of the aeuvre. (3) At the time of the belated foundation of modern Haydn scholarship (by Jens Peter Larsen), the basics of source research stood in the focus of attention, such as (a) the survey and study of the autograph scores, not too many by the way and mostly dated with the year only; (b) the separation of authentic works from the multitude of spurious ones; (c) a filiation of contemporary copies by separating Haydn's house copyists from others. This has grown too big for private studies, especially because a thematic catalogue (A. van Hoboken) was still in preparation which, at the time of its belated publication, became obsolete in many ways. (4) The feweentresofrecentHaydnresearchwhichemergedinthe 1950s 1960s, whether institute (Joseph Hclydn-Instzttst, Koln) or private (H. C. Robbins Landon etc. ), branched off and worked on parallel projects. As a result, we have variant editions of the major genres whereas the solid urtext of the critical edition (JHW) is used in practice only sporadically; the five-volume new monograph (H. C. Robbins Landon) with its full documentation but only capricious description of the music is disturbingly unbalanced. Though Haydn scholars are apparently willing to assist in performing his works, on the major occasions of