String Quartet opus 71, no 2, in D major – Joseph Haydn
________
in the spirit of juxtaposing two items of the
same genus but growing from different
trees, let me put together for comparison
two versions of Haydn’s delightful Opus 71,
no 2, in D major, one by a quartet of ladies
from “South Korea”, the other a same
number of males from the “UK”, as
indicated in either case on their videos
their Trondheim Chamber Music Festival
Competition was held last year, 2017,
it’s irrelevant who won on this particular
challenge, both are brilliant, so I’ll leave
it up to you, the girls, the Esmé Quartet,
the boys, the Maxwell – I think it might
even come down to your sexual
inclination, though both, as the host of
the musical “Cabaret” would say, “are
beautiful, life is beautiful, even the
orchestra is beautiful“, indeed
the Apponyi Quartets, requested and paid
for by Count Anton Georg Apponyi, after
Haydn’s sponsor, Prince Nicholas Esterházy,
had died and left his son, Prince Anton, with
Haydn on his hands, whose orchestra he
forthwith disbanded, being no aficionado of
music, Haydn was left to peddle his wares
in London, England, where he became an
undisputed success, not surprisingly, I
would think, after their having to handle the
dour and, if you’ll forgive me, unimaginative,
and uninspired Handel
the Esmé, I found, was sharp, acerbic,
succinct in their first movement, but
the Maxwell took over in their melting,
verily discombobulating adagio, a
sensuality that seemed to evade the
women’s more electric, crackling
performance
the girls caught up, however, in the
final “allegretto”, where they killed it
like I said, it’s a toss-up, you choose
R ! chard
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