Beschreibung:

HAYDN, Joseph (1732-1809). AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT of SKETCHES FOR THE ANDANTE OF THE UNFINISHED STRING QUARTET, opus 103, two pages, black ink, bearing the inscription of ALOYS FUCHS in red ink, with seal, oblong octavo, 220 x 287mm., (some staining and foxing) Haydn's compositional sketches for his string quartets are extremely rare. Sketches for only nine movements from a total of sixty-eight quartets have been documented. The autograph score of opus 103 is in the United States and contains the two completed movements, an Andante Grazioso and a Minuet. A sketch for the Minuet is held in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden and also bears an autograph inscription of Aloys Fuchs. The current sketch opens with the three concluding bars of the Minuet, and presents material belonging both to the Andante and to what seem to be other movements begun but never finished. In this sketch sections between two and eight bars long are noted down without regard to their position in the final form of the movement. In addition to the outlines of parts of the Andante, the verso appears in staves 4 - 7 to contain what may be sketches for the beginning of an unwritten final Rondo. Similarly, stave 11 of the recto has a melody in B flat which may either be part of another projected quartet or further sketches for an outer movement of opus 103, the two inner movements being the extant Minuet and Andante. Alternatively it has been proposed that the Andante itself was to be the first movement, in which case the B flat melody was intended for an inner movement. Haydn may have begun work on opus 103 in the spring of 1802 as the third quartet in the opus 77 set. However he was interrupted by the commission for the Harmoniemesse and so allowed Artaria to publish the two quartets of opus 77 in September. Haydn then returned to what would become opus 103 in the spring of 1803. On 15 March 1803, Paul Struck reported that Haydn, despite weak nerves, was labouring on what must be the unfinished quartet as no other work is known to have emerged in that year. It has been argued that of the two extant movements the Minuet was composed before the Harmoniemesse and the Andante a full year later. Both the draft of the Minuet and the present sketches for the Andante were owned by Aloys Fuchs (1799 - 1855). The sketch is inscribed at the upper right of the recto in red ink Aus dem Autographen Sammlung des Aloys Fuchs in Wien and in the lower right corner Originale von Joseph Haydn . Fuchs has also penned across the top left of the recto Skizze von Joseph Haydn's eigener Hand . This sketch is numbered "3" and the Minuet draft is numbered "1" by Fuchs. However the connection between them is made clear as Fuchs has noted N o 1 by the final measures of the Minuet at the beginning of the recto of the Andante sketch. This sketch for the Andante of opus 103 gives a fascinating glimpse of Haydn at work on his last piece. It shows the extreme refinement of Haydn's compositional methods at the end of his life: the steady reduction in the amount of music that Haydn sketched and his growing tendency to note important or intricate sections only. Breitkopf and Härtel published the two movements as the Dernier Quartet in October 1806, with the words and music of Haydn's visiting card printed at the conclusion Hin ist alle meine Kraft, alt und schwach bin ich .