String Quartet in C major, Op.76 No.3 (“Emperor”)

String Quartet in C major Op.76 No.3, Hob.III.77 “Emperor” (1797)

Allegro

Poco adagio, cantabile

Menuetto: allegro

Finale: presto

Haydn was so pleased with his adaptation of a Croatian folk tune as the Imperial hymn that he incorporated it in his Op.76 No.3 - hence its “Emperor” nickname. To provide a uniform framework for the Poco adagio variations on “Gott erhalte” he linked the other movements by basing all three of them on much the same short theme. The first five notes of the opening Allegro reappear, in varied form, as the first five notes of the Menuetto. They are back again, in another variant, at the beginning of the Finale, where they play as prominent a role as in the first movement.

Haydn was proud of his setting of the Imperial hymn “Gott erhalte.” It wasn’t his own tune - he adapted a Croatian folk song to fit Lorenz Haschka’s words - but he did regard it as a little masterpiece and he regularly consoled himself with it during his last illness, playing it through three times even on the day he died. The patriotic sentiment was important to him but so too was the quality of the melody which, having completed the anthem in January 1797, he enshrined in one of the string quartets he was writing for Count Erdödy at the time.

As though to provide a uniform framework for the Poco adagio variations on “Gott erhalte” Haydn linked the opening Allegro, the Menuetto and the Finale of the Quartet in C major by basing all three of them on more or less the same short theme. The first movement does have other material, notably the chain of dotted rhythms first heard at an early stage on the two violins, but by far the most important theme is the one introduced by first violin in the opening bars. Its first five notes are featured no less prominently in the second subject and the closing theme of the exposition. Alongside the still persistent dotted rhythms, they also dominate the development, most ingeniously of all where they are transformed into a wicked parody of a country dance over a rustic drone on viola and cello.

Too good a tune to vary in the conventional way, the future national anthem of Austria (and later of Germany) is introduced as a chorale and then repeated four times in different instrumental colouring. The melodic line passes intact from second violin to viola, to cello and to first violin in turn, accumulating more and more textural interest with every repetition.

The first five notes of the main theme of the opening Allegro reappear, in varied form, as the first five notes of the Menuetto. The A minor Trio section has its own subject matter but the five notes are back again, in another variant, at the beginning of the Finale, where they play as prominent a role as they did in the first movement. In this hard-driven Presto, however, spurred on by its multi-stopped chords and worried by its C minor harmonies, the atmosphere is quite different - until, that is, the welcome shift back to C major not far from the end.