Perhaps Haydn's first great (or near-great) quartet, this begins with a Moderato movement that introduces its spacious main theme in the cello's high register with a quick, saw-like accompaniment. This was a real innovation, liberating the cello from its usual role of sing-song secondary figuration. The other instruments, especially the first violin, soon regain their customary prominence in an exposition that is largely polyphonic. The development leaves the basic melodic shapes and sequences intact, but features some brazen modulations for the period, such as from G minor to E minor. The recapitulation is half as long as the exposition, but dramatic enough to count almost as an extension of the development. The Adagio, subtitled Capriccio, begins with a severe four-bar unison passage, and the dark main melody could almost have been drawn from a Baroque trio sonata. Haydn treats this material quite freely, almost operatically, with many recitatives, sudden shifts of mood, and cadences for the first violin. Halfway through, though, the first violin introduces a flowing melody over viola triplets, looking ahead to the sort of music that would suffuse Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ. The first violin becomes distracted by an odd cadenza which returns the music to its initial darkness and freedom of form, and the movement wanders to a close without literally repeating the first section. The Minuet is a more conventionally structured movement with lighthearted yet slightly reserved outer sections surrounding a more somber trio in C minor. The final Allegro is a short but imposing fugue rising to an energetic conclusion with a sometimes sighing theme and three countersubjects. This movement is clearly another of Haydn's nods to the Baroque era, despite the modern feel of the primary subject.



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