J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

constructed in an entirely new manner.’ 31 Whatever the merit of Haydn’s claims for
op.33 (see below), there can be no doubt of the crucial change signalled by opp.9-20.
Here he definitively left behind the early galant style of Wagenseil and Gassmann for a
recognisably sophisticated Viennese Classicism.
The most striking development is the emergence of a new sort of opening
movement, in a very leisurely 4/4 metre, rather lengthy, with plenty of room for
elaborate melodic and textural detail. Closing movements tended to gain in weight
and significance, coming to balance the opening movements more nearly. Instead of
the straightforward homophony of the early quartets, a greater independence of the
four instruments can be seen. These lines of development culminated in the fugal
finales of op.20/2, 5 and 6.
The three op.20 fugues are all lengthy (95, 162, and 184 bars) and densely
worked, with none of the various evasions we have noted in the baryton trios. The
subjects are not dispensed with after the first few entries, nor are there long stretches
of unrelated material. Apart from a brief digression in the F minor fugue (op.20/5),
these movements keep within the orbit of diatonically-related keys established since
the time of Corelli. There is no approach to a binary design, indeed hardly any literal
repetition at all. That Haydn could dispense with so many of the essentials of his
usual style and still write convincingly is a curiously impressive achievement. 32 That
he chose to do so suggests a strong, possibly external, motive.
Instead of the anonymous Fuxian tags seen in the baryton fugues he has here
chosen strongly profiled neo-Baroque subjects, each in a different metre, each with a
different character. In a sense these fugues are all ‘hyper-baroque’, developing the
subject matter more rigorously, prolonging the pedal-points more insistently,
31 Landon, Chronicle and works, II, p.317.
32 In this respect the fugues are not alone. One might draw comparisons with his renunciation of clear
thematic profile in the ‘Chaos’ movement from the Creation, or the evasive tonality of this and other
‘fantasia’ or capriccio movements (op.20/2, op.76/6), or the absence of normal contrasts in tempo
during the Seven Last Words.
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