With Haydn's String Quartet, Op. 1, No. 4, written around 1757, we can hear the master's skill growing at a breathtaking pace. At this stage of Haydn's career his works for string quartet still bore the label "divertimento," but everywhere in this work there are signs of the concentration and the wit that would mark the independent string quartet genre Haydn was constructing. In the opening dance-like presto, Haydn employs a deft transition from the first subject group to the second. Rather than have the second group follow the first, he has it, very much in the fashion of the mature composer, grow organically from it like a shoot from a burgeoning tree. In the trio of the first minuet, Haydn shows clear signs of his endlessly creative way with using texture to generate humor: the three lower instruments proceed in octaves posing a question, which the first violin answers with three chords. The adagio begins with unique echo effects between the violins, which then transform themselves into a charming canon between the upper and lower strings. The second minuet is notable for two reasons: it is livelier than the first, for Haydn believed in sometimes speeding up that stately dance. More signifcantly, it also continues the canonic idea from the previous movement, but in the minor mode. The finale is a brisk presto, whose first part follows sonata-form structure; it changes key for a mysterious contrapuntal interlude, then returns for the recapitulation, as if to say "order is restored."

© All Music Guide