Haydn- String Quartet in Eb

Haydn- String Quartet in Eb

1. Melody

   • Frequent use of sforzandos
   • Many passages in between are 'piano'
   • Very quiet joke endings
   • Periodic phrasing- 4,4,4 SADR
   • Bar 14-21 uses scales and arpeggios
   • Mainly diatonic melody with some chromatic passing notes
   • Bar 19 contains dissonance from diminished chords.
   • Chromatic and unaccented passing notes in bar 13 and 4
   • Auxillary notes in bar 4
   • Echappe Bar 3
   • 3 melodic ideas
     • X
       • Bar 23
       • Chromatic and rising
     • Y
       • Bar 59
     • Z
       • Bar 63

2. Metre

   • 6/8 Compound duple time
   • 2/4 Simple duple time

3. Rhythm

   • Occasional homorhythmic moments
   • Tends to have longer notes in bass part.
   • Often has crotchets followed by a quaver and dotted crotchet.
   • Rhythmic diminution
   • Violin 1 has breathless quavers
   • Bar 149 uses Lombardic rhythm (scotch snaps)
   • General pauses

4. Instrumentation

   • String Quartet
     • Violin 1
     • Violin 2
     • Viola
     • Cello
   • Not expecting doubling
   • No keyboard continuo
   • Violin double stopping
   • Arco strings

5. Harmony

   • Functional Harmony
   • Loads of tonic and dominant chords
   • Loads of perfect cadences
   • Lots of pedal notes
   • Some dissonance and chromatics such as diminished chords.
   • Bar 59-61 contain a harmonic sequence
   • There is a '4-3' suspension in bar 14
   • Bar 27 uses a dominant 7th chord
   • Increase in harmonic rate in bar 59.

6. Tonality

   • Eb Major
     • Reinforced by perfect cadences and pedals.
   • Doesn't go to relative minor
   • Modulates to... in section B
     • Ab major
     • Fm
     • Bb major

7. Structure

   • Rondo Form
     • Section A
       • Bar 1-36
       • Rounded Binary
     • Section B
       • Bar 37-70
     • Section A
       • 71-107
       • Rounded Binary
     • Section C
       • 108-140
     • Section A
       • 141-End
       • Rounded Binary

8. Texture

   • Largely 4 parts
   • Use of parallel 3rds, 6ths, 10ths
   • Homorhythmic moments
   • Melody Dominated Homophony

9. History

   • Haydn- father of string quartet
   • Cross over between classical and baroque
   • Prince Estherhazy owned him.
   • His pieces were sold for public use.
   • Designed for semi-private performances.

10. Other

    • Piece is Gli-Scherzi
    • Front cover was of a woman.
      • Led to nickname of 'Maidan Quartet'