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TESQ3
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edited by W.Dean Sutcliffe
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The Gyrowetz quartets are very different from the other two sets. Between the 1780s and the 1800s the string quartet had become much more expansive in scope, and adventurous in harmonic language. Gyrowetz was, of course, a representative of the Viennese tradition of instrumental music, and the witty repartee, dramatic modulations, colorful harmonic progressions and unusual phrase-lengths, familiar to us from Haydn's music, come together to form a style that consciously seeks to grab and hold our attention. In Haydn and early Beethoven these features have a poetic quality; by comparison, Gyrowetz's quirks generally remain on the level of playful entertainment. These are his last quartets, however, and by 1804 he had become quite an ambitious composer; the first movement of op. 44 no. 2 is a powerful, sophisticated sonata structure, and the Adagio of no. 3 opens up some genuinely romantic vistas through an elaborate pattern of interrupted cadences and harmonic sidesteps. As with Viotti, Gyrowetz shows an Achilles heel: in his case the part-writing is only so-so (not for nothing did Mozart, as a composition teacher, insist on a mastery of Fuxian counterpoint). The violin countermelody at bar 19 of the Second Quartet's Adagio is a case in point; its consecutive octaves and awkward dissonances with the melody mar what should be a beautiful effect.
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TESQ3
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721461
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edited by W.Dean Sutcliffe
