The string quartet form, developed more than 200 years ago by Franz Joseph Haydn, has been as durable as the lowly but indispensable dinner fork. Think about it. The fork hasn't changed much in two centuries. Oh, it's been made with a variety of materials, and the contours and curlicues come in thousands of designs.
But the basic dinner fork is still an easy-to-grip tool with a handle on one end and usually four prongs on the other. It's practical, durable and effective. Similarly, the string quartet is still the durable four-pronged composition Haydn helped design in the 1760s.
The term ``string quartet'' actually refers both to a type of composition and the group that plays it. The group consists of two violins, a viola and a cello. The classic format of the quartet-as-composition happens to correspond to the classic format of the symphony - which, not incidentally, was also established primarily by Haydn.
The first of a quartet's four movements is usually fast and in sonata form. At its simplest, sonata form introduces a main theme in a certain key and a contrasting theme in a related key; this is called the exposition.
The melodies are then stretched and kneaded like bread dough in the development section. Then the themes return pretty much in their original forms, except that both are in the key of the first theme; this is the recapitulation.
The next three movements are simpler. The second is slow and songlike. The third started out as a light but dignified 18th-century dance called a minuet, but evolved into a rapid, less inhibited but still rhythmic piece known as a scherzo. The fourth, too, is fast and usually makes a brilliant conclusion.
This is the format Haydn bequeathed to later composers, but he didn't invent it all at once. Haydn's early works are in the most popular style of the mid-18th century, known by the French word galant. A musical counterpart to the wispy paintings of Watteau, the galant style was light and elegant, and emphasized melody.
Music by the then recently deceased Bach and Handel had given fairly equal importance to most of the instrumental voices. In a typical trio sonata for violin, flute and bass instruments, the violin and flute would share melodic power, playing their tunes simultaneously.
Meanwhile, the bass instruments would fill in the harmony.
The bass, by the way, was known by the generic Italian term basso continuo. This part was usually assigned to both a cello and a keyboard instrument or lute. So, in a situation worthy of the creative accounting methods used in Washington, D.C., a trio was actually performed by four players - two separate melody instruments and a pair of bass instruments that counted as one.
But after Bach and Handel died in the 1750s, music started to thin out. In the galant style, one instrument would dominate the group with its melody, while the rest just sunnily trotted along.
That was the major trend in music in 1761, when Haydn got a job as resident composer for the princely Esterhazy family. Essentially a highly regarded servant, Haydn found himself spending much of each year at the family's palace in a remote corner of Hungary. Isolated from the musical fashions of cosmopolitan Vienna, Haydn began to experiment.
His earliest string quartets had been galant affairs. The first violin corresponded to the lead singer in a rock group, while the second violin, viola and cello played backup. For the most part, these quartets were easy enough for amateurs.
But before long, two things changed the way Haydn approached the string quartet.
First was Haydn's new attitude toward music in general. The years 1766-1772 are known as Haydn's ``Sturm und Drang'' - ``Storm and Stress'' - period. His works became more intense, more overtly dramatic - no longer simply pretty and galant.
Second was the availability of first-class quartet players. With hot-shot musicians at his disposal, Haydn was able to write quartets that were more difficult and that spread the difficulties more equally among the players.
Fine examples of this new style are Haydn's so-called ``Sun'' quartets, collected as opus 20.
(Opus, abbreviated op., is a Latin word meaning ``work.'' Assigning an opus number to a composition or group of compositions, rather like pasting catalog numbers to library books, is how many musicians keep track of their work. This is especially important when dealing with dozens of things with the same abstract title, like ``quartet'' or ``symphony,'' instead of things with distinct literary titles.)
In Haydn's ``Sun'' quartets, the instruments share the themes more equally, and there's even a return to the fugal style of Bach's time.
Ten years later, in 1782, Haydn published his op. 33 quartets. These more fully develop the tendencies of the ``Sun'' quartets, and are regarded as the first real masterpieces of string quartet writing. These are the works that inspired Mozart to write six highly advanced quartets of his own and dedicate them to Haydn.
It was through quartets, in fact, that Haydn and the younger Mozart had their greatest contact. In their spare time they played quartets together in Vienna in 1784-85, along with two lesser composers named Vanhal and Dittersdorf. Without Haydn's influence, Mozart might never have developed much interest in the quartet form.
In 1790 the latest in the line of Esterhsizy princes, a cultural bonehead, decided to fire most of his musicians and pensioned Haydn off. By then the Grand Old Man of European music, Haydn moved to Vienna, took on as a pupil a young tyro named Beethoven, and made two extremely successful concert trips to London, providing new music for each visit.
Haydn did not become an old poop set in his ways. His musical style continued to change, and the quartets he wrote in the 1790s are among his finest works. Best of all are the six quartets written in 1797 and published as op. 76.
Here, whistleable popular tunes dance through scholarly contrapuntal passages. The slow movements are beautifully hymnlike; in fact, the third quartet of the group bases its slow movement on the Austrian national hymn Haydn had just written. The melody, unfortunately, was later appropriated by German nationalists and is painfully remembered by survivors of the Nazi era as ``Deutschland uber alles.''
The third movements, which had been given to stately minuets in earlier quartets, are now snappier. And the finales tend to be tremendously fast and virtuosic.
This is the pattern that has dominated quartet writing up to the present. Of course, there have since been quartets in one movement, or three or five; there have been quartets that begin and end slowly and have all the fast material in the middle; there have been quartets that are more emotionally effusive, more spiritual, more tender, and certainly more dissonant than Haydn's.
But in an absolute sense, taking into account only craft and imagination, none are really better than Haydn's.
Haydn listening suggestions
For a recorded introduction to Haydn's string quartets, begin with the op. 76 set. Nearly every great 20th-century ensemble has recorded at least some of these six works, especially the third, known as the ``Emperor'' Quartet because of that second movement hymn.
One of the finest integral surveys of op. 76 was done nearly 25 years ago by Hungary's TBtrai Quartet. The group's sound is lean, its tempos are swift, and everything the players do seems entirely right. These performances have been issued in fine sound on two compact discs on the Hungaroton label.
The Tatrai Quartet has been working its way through the earlier and two later Haydn quartets ever since then, all for Hungaroton. The series was recently completed, and every one of the 20 or so discs, issued mostly in pairs, is a winner.
To explore beyond op. 76, move forward to the final pair, published as op. 77. Then skip back and sample the earlier collections. The Tatrai Quartet has issued opp. 71 and 74 together, making a convenient package. The fifth of the op. 64 group is a famous one nicknamed ``The Lark.'' And don't forget the path-breaking earlier groups, especially opp. 20, 33 and 50.
As long as you're soaking up Haydn, you really ought to hear some of his 104 symphonies. As mentioned, these pretty much follow the string quartet format, but are scored for full orchestra.
The best place to begin is at the end - Haydn's last dozen symphonies, grouped under the title ``London'' because that's where they were first performed. Sir Colin Davis' traversal of these works with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra should form the basis of any Haydn symphony collection; it's a box of four midpriced CDs.
For some of the earlier symphonies, you can always count on splendid performances by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields on Philips, the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon, and Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic on Sony Classical or the Vienna Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon.