Tag Archives: Franz Joseph Haydn

In concert – Kleio Quartet @ Wigmore Hall: Elgar, Webern & Haydn

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Kleio Quartet [Juliette Roos, Katherine Yoon (violins), Yume Fujise (viola), Eliza Millett (cello)]

Elgar String Quartet in E minor Op.83 (1918)
Webern 5 Movements for String Quartet Op.5 (1909)
Haydn String Quartet in D major Op.50/6 ‘Frog’ (1787)

Wigmore Hall, London
Monday 6 October 2025 (1pm)

On the evidence of this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, the Kleio Quartet – members of the station’s New Generation Artists scheme – are ones to watch. Not least for their programming, for it was refreshing to see a Haydn string quartet given top billing at a concert rather than making up the numbers.

The concert began with an account of Sir Edward Elgar’s sole String Quartet notable for its poise, elegance and understated emotion. Elgar’s ‘late’ works are best experienced in concert at this autumnal time of year, though the dappled sunlight evoked here was compromised by a subtle yet lasting foreboding. For the youthful Kleio Quartet to capture the thoughts of a man in his early 60s with such clarity was impressive indeed. They did so through a first movement taking the ‘moderato’ of Elgar’s tempo marking to hand – deliberate but never plodding. The dense, Brahmsian counterpoint was deftly unpicked, while the nostalgic elements of the second movement gave the feeling of an ensemble performing in an adjacent room, the listener asked to imagine an elegant salon setting. The purposeful finale snapped us out of this reverie with vigorous exchanges, though there was time for affection in its second theme. Ultimately the music revelled in the Sussex outdoors enjoyed by Elgar and wife Alice, though the Autumnal chill remained present.

Memories of a very different kind coursed through Webern’s 5 Movements for String Quartet, written in the wake of his mother’s death. These remarkable compositions illustrate an unparalleled gift for intense, compressed expression. None of the movements last longer than two minutes, yet so much concentrated feeling is loaded into their short phrases, pushing against tonality with oblique melodies and rich yet desolate harmonies.

The Kleio Quartet found those qualities and more in a deeply impressive account, with the alternate moods of the first movement, argumentative and then delicate, and the forthright third. Countering these moods were the soul searching second and the sparse, eerie fourth, where the ticking motif of Yume Fujise’s viola suggested a period of insomnia. The bare bones of Webern’s anguish were made clear in the final movement, in the high, inconsolable violin of Juliette Roos and the empty closing chords.

Following this with one of Haydn’s most amiable quartets was an inspired move, the Wigmore Hall audience smiling feely as the composer’s humour was repeatedly revealed. The so-called ‘Frog’ quartet, named for the croaking repeated notes of the finale’s main theme, shows Haydn completing his Op.50 set of six quartets with a panache that would surely have delighted their beneficiary, Frederick William II of Prussia.

The Kleio had fun with the unpredictable first movement, spirited yet restless, and the harmonic twists and turns of the Poco adagio, led by expressive flourishes from Roos. The quirky Menuetto revelled in melodic inflections and cheeky asides, with the pregnant pauses of the trio section adding to the irregular rhythms within the triple time meter. All of which set up the fun and frolics of the finale, where the occasional slip of ensemble tuning could be easily forgiven in the spirit of the Kleio’s performance, Haydn charming his audience to the very end.

Listen

You can listen to this concert as the first hour of BBC Radio 3’s Classical Live, which can be found on BBC Sounds until Tuesday 4 November.

Published post no.2,680 – Tuesday 7 October 2025

In concert – Heath Quartet @ London Chamber Music Society, St John’s Church Waterloo – Haydn, Bacewicz, Locke & Beethoven

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Heath Quartet [Maja Horvat & Sara Wolstenholme (violins), Gary Pomeroy (viola), Christopher Murray (cello)]

Haydn String Quartet in G major Op.33/5 ‘How Do You Do?’ (1781)
Bacewicz String Quartet no.6 (1960)
Locke Suite III in F (c1660)
Beethoven String Quartet no.16 in F major Op.135 (1826)

St John’s Church, Waterloo, London
Sunday 28 September 2025, 6pm

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

This early evening concert marked not just the start of London Chamber Music Society’s new season but also that of its first at St John’s Waterloo, following some 17 seasons in residence at King’s Place. The actual programme, however, could not have been more typically LCMS.

What better than to start with a Haydn quartet? His Op. 33 abounds in ‘less is more’ writing, not least the fifth in this set whose buoyant opening Vivace features a cadential figure which provides the nickname, then a Largo whose keening melody for first violin and cadenza-like passage betrays likely operatic origin. The Heath Quartet was equally inside the Scherzo with its amiable impulsiveness, while the final Allegretto had a genial humour that carried through to its good-natured payoff. A piece deserving of greater prominence within the Haydn canon.

As does the Sixth Quartet in Grażyna Bacewicz’s output. Evidently a breakthrough in terms of her writing for strings, its stealthy yet never brazen Modernism is clear from the opening movement in its subtle overhaul of sonata design, then the Vivace with its intensive rhythmic interplay. A ‘song without words’ centred on cello, the slow movement is a soulful interlude prior to a final Allegro as makes inventive play with rondo design – the widening expressive gulf between its stable refrain and its unpredictable episodes deftly sidestepped at the close.

Purcell’s music for consort might be the most directly acknowledged precursor of the string quartet, but that by Matthew Locke is hardly less significant and preceded it by almost two decades. This third of his six four-part suites is no exception – the substantial and teasingly discursive Fantasia being followed with an elegant Courante and a soulful Ayre then a (surprisingly?) trenchant Saraband. Throughout, the Heath’s seamless interplay was such as to relativize any distinction between a consort of viols and the ensemble of strings it became.

An ensemble taken to a peak of perfection on the cusp of the Romantic era with Beethoven’s last string quartet. Here the Heath judged the equable poise of its opening Allegretto then the quixotic humour of its scherzo to perfection. Neither was there any lack of feeling in a slow movement whose pathos becomes the greater for its understatement; the ‘difficult decision’ that informs the finale duly rendered with a sure sense of this music’s venturing towards its playful conclusion. Beethoven was rarely so profound as when he was being this disarming. A persuasive start to a new season and a new chapter in the illustrious history of the LCMS. A wide range of recitals is scheduled between now and June, while those unfamiliar with St John’s need have no doubt as to the excellence of its acoustic or attractiveness of its setting.

Click on the links for more information on the Heath String Quartet, the London Chamber Music Society and events at St. John’s Church, Waterloo. You can also click for more on composer Grażyna Bacewicz

Published post no.2,676 – Friday 3 October 2025

On this day – two Haydn premieres

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This day marks the anniversary of the premieres of two Haydn symphonies, from the group of 14 known as the ‘London’ symphonies.

The two works in question are the Symphony no.97 in C major, and the last of Haydn’s symphonies, the one known as the ‘London’ symphony – no.104. Both can be heard below:

Published post no.2,522 – Sunday 4 May 2025

On this day – two Haydn premieres

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This day marks the anniversary of the premieres of two Haydn symphonies, from the group of 14 known as the ‘London’ symphonies.

While many Haydn symphonies are labelled with nicknames, their unnamed counterparts are far from inferior! That is certainly the case for Symphony no.98 in B flat major, premiered at the Hanover Square Rooms in London on this day in 1792 with Haydn directing from the keyboard and the violinist Johann Peter Salomon, who commissioned the symphonies, leading the orchestra:

Haydn’s penultimate published symphony is no.103, the Drumroll – which was also given its first performance in London, on this day in 1795. It was given in the King’s Theatre, again with Haydn at the fortepiano and the famed violinist, Giovanni Battista Viotti, leading the orchestra.

The symphony is scored for a larger orchestra, with a fulsome wind and brass section – plus the timpani, responsible for the drum roll that opens the work:

Published post no.2,460 – Sunday 2 March 2025

In concert – Laura van der Heijden, CBSO / Richard Egarr: Bach, Haydn & Schumann

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Laura van der Heijden (cello, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Richard Egarr (harpsichord)

J.S. Bach Orchestral Suite no.3 in D major BWV1068 (1730)
Haydn Cello Concerto in D major Hob.VIIb/2 (1784)
J.S. Bach Fuga a tre sogetti BWV1080 no.19 (1748-9)
Schumann Symphony no.2 in C major Op.61 (1845-6)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Tuesday 14 November 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has put on smaller-scale concerts over several seasons, and tonight’s wide-ranging programme saw the players being conducted or directed – and frequently at the same time – by the personable and always enthusiastic Richard Egarr.

Egarr and Laura van der Heijden ensured Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D remained unaffected by that understatement, bordering on somnolence, which so often used to characterize it in performance. Although a staple of its repertoire from the outset, it was only discovery of its autograph in 1951 that confirmed it as by Haydn rather than Anton Kraft who had reworked the solo part extensively. Here the initial Allegro had a vibrancy that never wavered, and if Van der Heijden’s tone was not always flattering, the impetus instilled into its development and cadenza (by Colin Matthews?) ensured this movement’s vivid projection. The brief yet eloquent Adagio was enticingly rendered, while the final Rondo had an agility maintained from the first appearance of its indelible theme through to the buoyancy of its closing bars.

Egarr had opened proceedings with Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite, welcome not least because this composer’s orchestral works (other than his Violin Concertos) are seldom encountered at ‘mainstream’ concerts these days. Although its Aria (Air on the G string) – rendered so that its pathos never cloyed – will always be its chief attraction, the Ouverture had grandeur and energy redolent of Handel, then the alternate Gavotte movements evinced a genial humour to which the boisterous Gigue with its clarion-like trumpet writing made an admirable foil. After the interval, an unexpected but absorbing take on the final and unfinished fugue from Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Once more speculated on than actually heard, Contrapunctus XIV remains a fete of technical and imaginative dexterity arguably intensified by its breaking off just after the appearance of the B-A-C-H motif. Whether abandoned from failing eyesight or for reasons of intellectual game-playing, its fascination remains endless and, as heard in this lucid if dour transcription for strings, its fusing of the visceral with the arcane is not in doubt.

Richard Egarr Photo: Marco Borggreve

Not an inappropriate entrée, moreover, to Schumann’s Second Symphony: formally the most rigorous of this composer’s cycle, and one whose historical or aesthetic lineage is evident at every level. Egarr ensured the first movement’s lengthy introduction, pensive yet expectant, led seamlessly into a main Allegro whose momentum carried through to a propulsive close; then into a Scherzo whose pivoting between the agitated and whimsical was not resolved by its headlong coda – superbly articulated here. Nor was there any lack of emotional gravitas in the Adagio, surely among Schumann’s most potent creations, though Egarr’s not always tacit encouragement of applause between movements rather undermined the expectancy of a coda being fulfilled by the final Allegro as this sets out on its joyous while always eventful course.

Just on occasion the inevitability of that course seemed to lose focus, most likely as Egarr’s concept of ‘authenticity’ tended to impede more seamless formal cohesion – but, as the piece headed to its close, a sense of affirmation in the face of daunting odds could hardly be denied.

You can read all about the 2023/24 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more information on cellist Laura van der Heijden and conductor / harpsichordist Richard Egarr

Published post no.1,998 – Friday 3 November 2023