Haydn: String Quartets, Vol. 5, Op. 33/Henle

Category: String Quartet, Two Violins, Viola and Cello ** Composer: Haydn, Franz Joseph ** Title: String Quartets, Op. 33 ** Book/Part: Vol. 5 ** Edited by: Georg Feder and Sonja Gerlach ** Publisher: G. Henle Verlag URTEXT ** Difficulty: A4/A5.

Though Franz Joseph Haydn did not "invent" the string quartet, he is often considered the "Father of the String Quartet" because of his huge contribution to the genre. Within this medium, he was extremely prolific; 83 works for quartet are attributed to him. Some of those pieces have, in recent years, been deemed spurious by scholars (i.e., they may possibly be the work of other composers), but the body of compositions believed to be Haydn's is still quite large. Not only did he compose a great 'quantity' of quartets, but the 'quality' of those pieces is very high - setting such a standard for this type of composition that later composers, including Mozart and Beethoven, would pattern their quartets on his, striving for their exquisite beauty and perfection. This collection, String Quartets, Volume 5, includes all six quartets from Op. 33, Hob. III:37-42, also known as the "Russian" quartets.

Contents:
* Quartet In B Minor, Op. 33, No. 1, Hob. III:37
* Quartet In E-Flat Major ("Joke"), Op. 33, No. 2, Hob. III:38
* Quartet In C Major, Op. 33, No. 3, Hob. III:39
* Quartet In B-Flat Major, Op. 33, No. 4, Hob. III:40
* Quartet In G Major ("How do you do?"), Op. 33, No. 5, Hob. III:41
* Quartet In D Major, Op. 33, No. 3, Hob. III:42