String Quartet in C major, Op.33, No.3 (“The Bird”)

Haydn’s declaration that his Op.33 Quartets were “written in a quite new and special way” has aroused endless speculation as to what he could have meant by that. Some Haydn specialists have dismissed it as sales talk - the composer was looking for subscribers to an expensive “correctly copied” manuscript edition when he made that claim - while others have exercised their ingenuity in detecting technical features which are not apparent in the previous set. In fact, the most obvious difference between the Op.33 Quartets of 1781 and the Op.20 Quartets of 1772 is that the minuets have been replaced by scherzos. It is true that the Op.33 scherzos are not very different from the Op.20 minuets but the change of name is not insignificant. It was part of a process of modernising the string quartet, of making it less overtly serious, more entertaining, more popular in melodic style.

There is no better example of what is “new and special” in Op.33 than No.3 in C major. It has attracted its “Bird” nickname through a consistent use of grace notes and other decorations which, though presumably not ornithologically inspired, impart a cheerful surface to a work that wears its knowledge lightly. The grace notes are there from the start, as the first violin introduces the first subject, and they are there again, at all levels of the texture, both in the transition to the second subject and in the playful new theme itself. In the development, and even at as late a stage as the coda to the movement, Haydn can take harmonic risks while apparently toying harmlessly with the grace-note figuration.

The principal features of the outer sections of the Scherzando second movement are the smoothness of the legato line, the homogenous quality of the texture and the secretive (sotto voce or mezza voce) colouring. The chirping figuration, this time in the form of trills, is heard only in the violin duet in the middle section. The Adagio is another bird-free area. It is not short of decorative interest, however, least of all in the second of the three statements of its theme in F major, just as there is no lack of harmonic adventure within its outwardly unenterprising construction

One of the masterful aspects of the work is that the bird-song figuration is neither abandoned nor specially profiled in the last movement but incorporated in the main theme as a natural element in its stylish Hungarian idiom. A brilliantly scored gypsy rondo in C major, it includes exotic episodes in A minor and C minor in its breathless approach to its whispered ending.