By the time Haydn wrote the last quartets in his Op. 64 set, he knew he would need some new works to perform in the fairly large concert halls of London, where he would soon be traveling. Thus this E-flat quartet and its predecessor, the so-called "Lark," are the most innovative and idea-filled of the bunch.

The opening Allegro begins in the instruments' low registers with note values so long that the passage could masquerade as a slow introduction. As the melody and its countersubject develop, though, the note values grow shorter and the music seems to pick up speed-it also moves into the higher registers, and the concise, tick-tock development section is more a study in contrasts of high and low than a working-through of themes. Haydn introduces a surprise in the recapitulation, a fugato treatment of the first subject; he rightly anticipated that his London audience would be delighted by such a departure from convention.

The second movement, Andante, is a warm, singing theme with two variations. The first assigns a highly figured version of the melody to the first violin, while the other strings provide a jagged accompaniment of sixteenth notes. The second variation gives the melody a clear-textured contrapuntal treatment.

The Minuet is a graceful but not especially remarkable episode in the usual 3/4 time. The trio, though, is a Viennese Ländler with gemütlich grace notes for the solo first violin, a bit of foreign color to charm the London audience.

The finale, Presto, is a rondo with an undanceably fast contradance theme, the first violin leading the way through a plucky main tune and intervening episodes splattered with sixteenth-note solos.



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