Basic to the style of the new quartets is their adoption of certain metrical conven-tions. No fewer than half of the interior slow movements, for example, explore the expressive and decorative possibilities of a stately 43time. Haydn had chosen triple meter for the opening Adagio of Op. 1/3 and the middle movement of Op. 2/4; but slow triple time is otherwise absent from the earlier quartets (perhaps with good reason, because 43is already richly represented in those five-movement works by their pairs of minuet-trio complexes). More significant than the en-dorsement of a slow 34itself is the attendant rhythmic diversity, as in the Largo of Op. 9/5, where sustained sonorities at the beginning are disturbed by a flurry of thirty-second notes as early as the end of measure 2 in a gesture that anticipates the wealth of small-note figuration—engaging sixteenth-, triplet sixteenth-, and thirty-second-note activity—that informs the subsequent course of events.
(b) Op. 2/2/v, mm. 37-43 (violin 1 only)
37 33 Vn1
Vn2
3
e x a m p l e 9 . 1
(a) Op. 17/4/iv, mm. 33–36 (violins only)
(b) Op. 2/2/v, mm. 37–43 (violin 1 only)
Likewise bursting with rhythmic detail are the new common-time opening movements, which display a metrical type that writers of the time describe as the compound 44: the notated measure essentially combines two measures of24time, a practice that readily leads to situations of ambiguity—and perhaps near-equality—
of metrical accent between first and third beats.8Frequently encountered in other eighteenth-century vocal and instrumental repertories, it was only now to be used by Haydn for first movements of his quartets, where it supersedes his earlier preference for 24,83, and 68. Typically, the quarter note defines a basic pulse, while a nearly pervasive motion in eighth notes sustains momentum. Sixteenth notes are common in principal lines and accompaniments, and there are some ex-tended stretches of triplet sixteenths in addition to decorative figures involving thirty-second notes (the latter occurring more often in Op. 9 than in Op. 17).
The layered metrical continuum thus described invites thematic diversity as well as contrasting activity among simultaneously sounding parts, and it pro-motes the excitement of rhythmic acceleration in anticipation of a structural goal or rhetorical climax. But in addition to the sweep of a long melodic trajec-tory, this brand of common time also lends itself to the quintessential intricacy and concentration of chamber style; and because of the ambivalence of the com-pound measure as a metrical unit (depending on the context in question, the ac-centual force of beat 1 may scarcely differ from that of beat 3), it invites phraseo-logical intrigue. Themes may unfold not only in a mixture of two- and four-beat units (the latter aligned variously with the beginning or the middle of the mea-sure) but also in occasional six-beat units that straddle the notated bar lines.
Haydn makes splendid use of these possibilities in the first movement of Op. 9/1, starting off with a pair of three-measure phrases, the second a variant of the first (see ex. 9.2). The three measures that follow (mm. 7–9) push forward and desta-bilize by forming a pair of one-and-a-half-measure units; and whereas metrical stability is partially reclaimed as the theme continues, the unit-halving impetus—
and the attendant impression of acceleration—persists, notably in the change from one-measure ideas in descending sequence (mm. 11–12) to a pair of highly energized half-measure figures in measure 13. This pattern intensifies the ap-proach to an inflected half cadence in measure 14, sharpens the directional thrust of the theme in its entirety, and lends an additional touch of unity by re-calling a similar pattern of unit-halving acceleration within the theme’s very opening measures (indicated by brackets in the example).
In a more extreme case of rhythmic play, from the first movement of Op. 17/5, Haydn reaches beyond the ambivalence of half-measure displacement to a per-ilous loosening of the metrical fabric. Toward the end of a long development, the texture thins to an open-ended melodic stream in the first violin, unaccompa-nied except for sporadic chordal accents in the lower parts (mm. 59–68). The vio-lin’s meandering line implies no strong or regular grouping of beats, and the punctuating chords mostly do not coincide with notated downbeats. Instead,
13
3 3
10 7
4 6 3
3 6 3
Moderato
3
e x a m p l e 9 . 2 Op. 9/1/i, mm. 1–14 (violin 1 only)
their unpredictably placed impacts temporarily obliterate any sense of a measure-level continuum. Metrically adrift at a precarious moment of retransition, we find our attention drawn with peculiar intensity to the first violin’s improvisatory-like connecting thread.
A further possibility to which the first movements’ common time gives rise is the sudden, momentary cancellation of foreground detail, which depending on context may work to create dramatic surprise, rhetorical emphasis, or comical in-terruption. In one example, from Op. 17/2, the customary buildup of energy and momentum has led to a melodic peak (m. 27 in the exposition, m. 88 in the re-capitulation), and the culminating trill over dominant harmony that follows promises imminent resolution and stability. But the cadence is avoided, har-monic progress stalls, and after two and a half aimlessly repetitive measures, sur-face motion practically expires. The ensemble drops back to a quiet dynamic level, and all parts join in a moment of contemplation, a mystifying temporal parenthesis (mm. 32–33; 94–95) that momentarily banishes eighth- and sixteenth-note activity just before a final run to the close.