Haydn’s Color Chart

In yesterday’s email I stopped short of where I was meaning to go. I thought it was going to get a little too esoteric.

However, this morning I received an email from my friend Nicolo, and his interest and enthusiasm drives me forward.

So Nicolo, this one is for you.

A few years ago the New Hollywood String Quartet, of which I was then the 1st violinist, performed Hadyn’s magnificent Quartet in D Major, Op. 76, #4.

The opening movement is a very stylized movement in a moderate tempo.

The second movement is out of this world.

Haydn writes, for the tempo, ‘adagio molto e mesto’. Say that out loud a few times with an Italian accent. Doesn’t it sound wonderful?

All right, now consider this. This Very slow, ‘mournful’ movement is written in F Sharp Major. Take a look in virtually any harmony book and it will most likely say that the more sharps in the key signature the ‘brighter’ the sound.

It ain’t necessarily so.

The last note of the first movement is a D major chord. Using ‘just’ tuning – the resultant tones are in tune – the F sharp is 13% lower than it would be if tempered, like a piano.

Now, use THAT F sharp as the tonic for the next movement, and then think of a ‘justly tuned’ major third above it. Yes, it’s an A sharp. And when played in such a context it takes on the ‘color’ of the winter sun seen through amber glass.

Believe me. Haydn knew tuning. This was no accident.

Before I became somewhat clued in, where tuning is concerned, I would have been very puzzled by the seeming contradiction in key and tempo/feeling marking. Now it makes perfect sense to me.

The trick is to get four people to ‘see the light of the winter sun shining through amber glass’ together. Let me tell you, it takes some practice.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Speaking of ‘seeing the light’. There is a great deal of it to be shed on the fundamentals of violin playing in Kreutzer for Violin Mastery. And there won’t be anything wintry about it either.