The passage from which the second of the quotations is taken is one of the most beautiful in all chamber music, and the whole development section in this wonderful movement will repay the closest study.
Haydn's andante ends with a few tender allusions to the persistent motive of the original theme, which faintly echoes in pathetic cadence. Such passages endear Haydn to us because of their genuineness. There is nothing false in his sentiment; he is always straightforward, he always writes unaffectedly. Among the great composers he stands apart as a simple-hearted man, who was without guile, and who retained to the end of his life the same childlike na?et?.
V. THE MINUET.
The general characteristics of dances like the minuet, gavotte, etc., have been referred to in Chapter IV, where the inclusion of the minuet in the sonata and symphony of the classical period was noted. We are here chiefly concerned with the effect of this inclusion on the minuet itself and with its status in the group of movements that made up the cyclic form.
The minuet is a dance of French origin, characterized by stateliness and grace. The earliest music written for it consisted of one melody containing two eight measure phrases. These were gradually lengthened, and finally a second minuet was added as in the gavotte. Bach used the minuet sparingly in his suites. The reader is referred to the fourth English Suite, which contains a minuet followed by minuet II, not called "Trio." Handel occasionally incorporates the minuet in his suites and frequently uses it as the last movement in his oratorio overtures. All these old minuets were in slow tempo, but the desire for freedom of expression impelled composers not only to expand them in various ways, but, finally, to increase their speed. This important change was doubtless largely inspired by the desire for contrast in the movements of the symphony, for in the sonatas of Haydn and Mozart we find the middle movement usually an andante or adagio, and when the minuet[21] is incorporated it is in slow tempo.
Practically all the minuets of Bach and Handel as well as those of the Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven period were written in what we have called "simple ternary form," the second minuet, or trio, constituting the middle section, B. Occasionally a minuet with two trios appears, in which case the form becomes A, B, A, C, A. Marches (which are commonly in simple ternary form) are quite frequently written with two trios, the most familiar example being the well known wedding march by Mendelssohn.
The symphonic minuet is the only relic of the suite retained in the sonata and symphony. The changes it underwent through this promotion from the ranks of the old dances were not only changes of tempo, but of spirit or essence. For whereas it had been demure, conventional, and stately, as if pervaded by a kind of courtly grace, it became in Haydn's time a wayward, humorous, and even frolicsome member of musical society, and provided a certain lightness and spontaneity much needed in the sober symphonic family.