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

they part of a self-imposed ‘cours complet de la composition’? A rejoinder to north
German criticism of his ‘triviality’ and ‘caprice’? Perhaps they were written in the
light of the imperial court’s well-known taste for fugue? Did Haydn remember J. G.
Werner’s harsh words, describing him as a ‘Modehansl’ and a ‘G’sänglmacher’? 50 Or
was there some other impetus: a conversation, a request, a performance, now lost to us
forever? Very likely there was no single ‘cause’, but a number of factors acting in
combination. We simply don’t know enough to determine what exactly fugal writing
meant to Haydn during this stage of his career.
HAYDN’S FUGUES AND THE IDEA OF ‘CLASSICAL STYLE’
Attempts to situate these fugues in the context of Haydn’s total achievement
are complicated by the peculiar historical and cultural significance his quartets have. It
was the German musicologist Adolf Sandberger who first drew attention to Haydn’s
claim that his op.33 quartets were written in ‘an entirely new and special manner.’ 51
Since his article of 1899 a flood of ink has been spilled, hotly debating whether this
was nothing more than a mere sales ploy or whether Haydn actually meant something
by his statement. Leading scholars have been divided on the issue, Sandberger,
Blume, Finscher, and Barrett-Ayres agreeing that op.33 marks the important watershed
in Haydn’s development, Larsen, Landon, Kirkendale, Tovey and Somfai arguing for
the significance of op.20 (Orin Moe, on the other hand, has put forward op.50 as the
defining set). 52 If only as a red herring, Haydn’s claim is inescapable, forcing one into
an opinion whether one wishes to or not. But why does it matter so much? Why the
50 ‘Fashion-monger’ and ‘cheap tunester’: Landon, Chronicle and works, II, p.347. Haydn, on the
other hand, had a high regard for Werner, editing and publishing six of his fugues in 1804 (see p.399
below).
51 ‘Zur Geschichte des Haydn’schen Streichquartetts’, Altbayerische Monatsschrift 2 (1900), 41-64.
52 ‘Texture in the string quartets of Haydn to 1787’, (PhD diss.: University of California, 1970).
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