Listen to a translation of Mozart’s dedication in the first edition of his Haydn Quartets, read by actor Christopher Inman.
Perhaps the best-known music publication of the eighteenth century, this first edition of six string quartets features Mozart’s famous dedication to his friend and colleague, the composer Joseph Haydn. When Artaria published the edition in September 1785, they advertised it as “a master-piece” for which they “have not spared any costs” to please “both amateurs and connoisseurs.” After performing the works, Haydn declared to Leopold Mozart: “Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”
WA Mozart (1756–1791)
“Haydn” Quartets, K. 387, K. 421, K. 458, K. 428, K. 464, K. 465
First edition
Vienna: Artaria, 1785
Christopher J. Salmon Collection, New York, L2026.97.15 and L2026.97.16
To my dear friend Haydn,
A father who had resolved to send his children out into the great world took it to be his duty to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated Man, especially when the latter by good fortune was at the same time his best Friend. Here they are then, O great Man and my dearest Friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavour, yet the hope inspired in me by several Friends that it may be at least partly compensated encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me some solace one day. You yourself, dearest friend, told me of your satisfaction with them during your last Visit to this Capital. It is this indulgence above all which urges me to commend them to you and encourages me to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favour. May it therefore please you to receive them kindly and to be their Father, Guide and Friend! From this moment I resign to you all my rights in them, begging you however to look indulgently upon the defects which the partiality of a Father’s eye may have concealed from me, and in spite of them to continue in your generous Friendship for him who so greatly values it, in expectation of which I am, with all my Heart, my dearest Friend,
your most Sincere Friend
W.A. Mozart
“Dissonance” String Quartet No. 19, K. 465, Adagio-Allegro, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Brentano String Quartet. Mozart: String Quartets Nos. 19 & 16, K. 465 & 428. ℗ 2019 Azica Records.