String Quartet in F minor, Op.55, No.2 (Hob.III.61) (“Razor”)

1 Andante più tosto allegretto 2Allegro 3 Menuetto: allegretto 4 Finale: Presto

The story behind the “Razor” nickname is that when the British publisher John Bland called on Haydn at Esterháza in 1789 the composer, who happened to be shaving at the time, declared that he would give his best quartet for a pair of good English razors. Bland promptly presented him with his own and took the Quartet in F minor in return. Whatever the truth of the story, the superior quality of the work – which begins with a distinguished example of Haydn’s favourite double-variation form, one theme in F minor and the other in F major – is beyond dispute.

The following Allegro also begins in F minor and ends in F major, though at no expense to harmonic variety – least of all where, just after its first appearance in F minor and with no more preparation than a prolonged silence, the main theme is reintroduced in G flat major. The contrapuntal enterprise in the development section here is resumed, if less energetically, in the F major Menuetto and is not entirely abandoned in the Finale in the same key. In the latter case, however, the interest is not so much in the texture as in the rhythmic eccentricity derived from the all pervasive skipping step of the solitary main theme.

The story behind the “Razor” nickname is that when the British publisher John Bland called on Haydn at Esterháza in 1789 the composer, who happened to be shaving at the time, declared that he would give his best quartet for a pair of good English razors. Bland, the story goes on, promptly presented him with his own and took the Quartet in F minor in return. Whatever the truth of the story - and Bland certainly did acquire some manuscripts from Haydn in 1789 - the superior quality of the work itself is beyond dispute. It begins with a distinguished example of Haydn’s favourite double-variation form, this one based on themes related not only by key but also by the fact that the second theme in F major is itself a variant on the first in F minor. The exposure of the first violin to elaborate bravura work at the top end of the E-string, particularly where the cello takes over the melodic line in the last F major variation, is an unmistakable reminder, incidentally, that this is one of the twelve quartets written for Johann Tost, who evidently excelled in that perilous area.

The following Allegro also begins in F minor and ends in F major, though at no expense to harmonic variety - least of all where, just after its first appearance in F minor and with no more preparation than a prolonged silence, the main theme is reintroduced in G flat major. There is a similarly surprising moment in the development section, just before a fugal episode which is sustained almost to the start of the recapitulation. Contrapuntal enterprise is continued, if less energetically, in the F major Menuetto and is not entirely abandoned in the Finale in the same key. In the latter case, however, the interest is not so much in the texture as in the rhythmic eccentricity derived from the all pervasive skipping step of the solitary main theme and in the technical pressure ruthlessly applied to first violin and cello.