In 1797, Haydn composed six string quartets published as Opus 76 and dedicated them to his patron, Count Joseph Georg von Erdody of Hungary. These six quartets were composed soon after Haydn's return to Vienna from his second residency in London and are his supreme works of chamber music.
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| ST STEPHENS CATHEDRAL IN VIENNA - 1800 |
Haydn experiments with the established rules of formal structure in each of the quartets. First movement sonata forms are modified or sometimes abandoned altogether (numbers 5 and 6). Other movements include nontraditional forms such as fantasia and canon. Nontraditional tempo markings and uncommon key signatures are utilized to further deviate from the expected norms.
The Opus 76 quartets were composed when Haydn was at the peak of his compositional development and set new standards for the genre that would influence the next generation of composers such as Beethoven and Schubert.
