Haydn: Les Quatuors Œuvre 50

Quatuor Festetics

A 415

« I tell you, before God, as a gentleman, that your son is the greatest composer I know… » Such were the remarks Haydn was reputed to have made to Leopold Mozart after receiving the six quartets that Wolfgang dedicated to him. There is no reason to doubt Haydns sincerity: he truly loved Mozart, both as a person and as a musician, and whenever possible, he attended the premieres of the younger composers new works. The bond between the two men is unique in history. Haydn was the greatest living composer that Mozart ever met, and reciprocally, even if Mozart was a bit more ambiguous, not being completely uninvolved in the legend of Papa Haydn which would cause such harm to his elders posterity.

Notwithstanding, the encounter with Mozart was, for Haydn, the cause of a profound self-questioning as we would say today. From that time on, the master of Eszterháza would compose no more piano concertos, already this was not his field, or operas, a genre to which he had largely contributed heretofore, nor would he attempt the adventure of the string quintet, all genres precisely in which Mozart excelled. But the string quartet was another matter: it was his favourite genre, the richest, most elaborate form that he, if not exactly created, at least defined for posterity. To speak only of the quartets laid out in four movements, Haydn had already produced four sets, or twenty-four quartets, by the time that Mozart offered him his. It is symptomatic that, after receiving Mozarts offering, Haydn would publish three new series of six quartets, one after the other, between 1787 and 1790. And in those new series, Haydn remains himself and attains the supreme mastery to which the genre could aspire in 1790. Thus, the Opus 50 constitutes musically a key point in the long history of the Haydn quartet.

With the present release, the FESTETICS QUARTET has passed the midpoint in the project of recording the complete Quartets authenticated by the composer for the great Artaria edition. Thirty-three of the fifty-eight quartets retained are henceforth available.

As the outlines of this vast project, the most ambitious enterprise of the ARCANA catalogue, take shape, the FESTETICS QUARTET impose themselves as the ideal interpreters and one of the most eminent quartets of our time. The approach of sources, performance principles, the unity of instrumental school and the homogeneity of the whole determine a highly developed idiomatic approach. But what is most fascinating is the magical emotional intensity of the slow movements and the flexible vigour and enthusiasm of the fast sections. In comparison, a conventional interpretation henceforth seems unpolished and somewhat elephantine: what quartet today, playing on modernised instruments, can rival with the FESTETICS on the level of virtuosity, precision of the ensemble and accuracy?

MICHEL BERNSTEIN Translated by John Tyler-Tuttle

CD

7.05.2009

8033891690021