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Monday, March 31, 2003

# Posted 3:30 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAPA HAYDN! For homework, go and celebrate Haydn's birthday by listening to the Creation chorale.

Haydn's most recognizable melody is, of course, the music of the Deutschlandlied. Now made embarassing by the tyrant of Braunau-am-Inn and since then never performed in its first verse, Germany's national anthem initially had a very different set of associations, serving as a rallying cry of the republican nationalists of 1848, and inspired by the solemn beauty of God Save the King. More important from the perspective of musical history, though, is a second context: the melody we recognize as Deutschland Uber Alles is the second movement of Haydn's 1797 Emperor Quartet (in C Major, the third of six quartets published as Haydn's Opus 76). And the string quartet is the musical form which Haydn did more than anyone else to bring from its early beginnings as a melody with tripartite accompaniment to the balanced development of four equal voices using sonata form which is reflected in the Emperor and companion pieces, incidentally, Haydn's final quartets.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Papa Haydn! Hoch soll er leben!
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