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It would be too much to say that even Haydn fully realized the
capacities of each of his four instruments. Indeed, his quartet
writing is often bald and uninteresting. But at least he did
write in four-part harmony, and it is certainly to him that we
owe the installation of the quartet as a distinct species of
chamber music. "It is not often," says Otto Jahn, the biographer
of Mozart, "that a composer hits so exactly upon the form suited
to his conceptions; the quartet was Haydn's natural mode of
expressing his feelings." This is placing the Haydn quartet in a
very high position among the products of its creator. But its
artistic value and importance cannot well be over-estimated. Even
Mozart, who set a noble seal upon the form, admitted that it was
from Haydn he had first learned the true way to compose quartets;
and there have been enthusiasts who regarded the Haydn quartet
with even more veneration than the Haydn symphony. No fewer than
seventy-seven quartets are ascribed to him. Needless to say, they
differ considerably as regards their style and treatment, for the
first was written so early as 1755, while the last belongs to his
later years. But they are all characterized by the same
combination of manly earnestness, rich invention and mirthful
spirit. The form is concise and symmetrical, the part-writing is
clear and well-balanced, and a "sunny sweetness" is the
prevailing mood. As a discerning critic has remarked, there is
nothing in the shape of instrumental music much pleasanter and
easier to listen to than one of Haydn's quartets. The best of
them hold their places in the concert-rooms of to-day, and they
seem likely to live as long as there are people to appreciate
clear and logical composition which attempts nothing beyond
"organized simplicity." [See W. J. Henderson's How Music
Developed, p. 191: London, 1899]. In this department, as Goethe
said, he may be superseded, but he can never be surpassed.
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