String Quartet in B-Flat Major

In the autumn of 1796, Haydn completed his final set of quartets (Op. 76) for Count Joseph Erdödy, continuing the successful synthesis of the popular and sophisticated which he’d polished in his recent quartets and symphonies for London. The English public swiftly nicknamed the fourth quartet the “Sunrise” on account of its ascending first violin part which, at the very outset, describes circles in the air above hushed chords in the lower strings. The slow movement (“Adagio”) combines Haydn’s love of broad hymn-like melody with echoes of the spontaneous spirit of the quartet’s opening. No one should be fooled by the third movement’s polite heading, “Menuetto”—there’s more than a dash of folky high jinks here. The spirit of the folk dance continues into the witty finale, which pretends it’ll end with a conventional return to the tuneful opening, but instead plunges us into a dizzy, last-minute digression, fragmenting the main theme between all four players.