HAYDN: String Quartets Volume 2 = String Quartets Op. 2 Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 – Auryn Quartet – Tacet

HAYDN: String Quartets Volume 2 = String Quartets Op. 2 Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 – Auryn Quartet – Tacet 188, 78:21 [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
Because of the innovations and perfection Haydn brought to the form, he is sometimes still referred to as “Father of the Symphony.” However, by the time he started writing symphonies at the end of the 1750s, the symphony’s chief attributes (a four-movement work in sonata-allegro form) had been firmly established, and Haydn merely built brilliantly on the achievements of symphonic pioneers. With the string quartet it’s another story. Haydn is fully deserving of the moniker “Father of the String Quartet.” When he came to the form, it was light entertainment music in the manner of the divertimento or cassation. In fact, Haydn was still calling his quartets divertimenti as late as the 1770s, when he penned his Op. 20 Quartets. But as early as the Op. 9 Quartets of 1761 he had left the divertimento style behind and was perfecting the form that would culminate in his Op. 76 and Op. 77 Quartets.
The Op. 2 Quartets, composed sometime after 1755, thus inhabit a very different world from the masterworks of the 1790s. Each quartet has five instead of the characteristic four movements, and those five movements include two minuets, which tends to accentuate the basic lightheartedness of the music. The closest Haydn comes to profundity is in the Adagios of Nos. 1 and 4, especially the noble minor-key Adagio from No. 4. Also, unlike in the later quartets, the strings are not equal partners; the first violin is clearly top banana and is even given a chance to show off with a vest-pocket cadenza in the slow movement of No. 2. This quartet and No. 6 are closest in feel to the classic divertimento. No. 6 starts with a slow variations-form movement and includes a central scherzo flanked by two minuets, setting it at an even farther remove from the typical Haydn string quartet. Incidentally, the Auryn Quartet doesn’t include Nos. 3 and 5 since these are arrangements of cassations and are probably not by Haydn. (The booklet from the Auryn set categorically states they are not.)
That’s not to say the Op. 2 Quartets aren’t pleasing and eminently listenable, from the two aforementioned adagios to the solid if brief sonata-form opening movements to the glittery-skittery presto last movements to the general, highly appealing bonhomie of No. 2, which is for me the most memorable. (I’ve heard this work arranged for guitar quartet, where its stylistic links to the divertimento are even more evident.)
As with other installments in Auryn’s Haydn quartet series, this becomes an instant benchmark. The Auryn simply catch the Haydn manner better than any other quartet I’ve heard, with a well-calibrated emotional barometer in each of Haydn’s twenty movements, in addition to lovely tone and spot-on intonation top to bottom. Again, the sound, from Kirche Honrath near Cologne, is excellent, too—resonant but detailed, with a wide sound stage and convincing depth, as if you’re listening from a seat in the middle of the house. An easy recommendation.
– Lee Passarella