Jiesoon Kim, Ph.D. 1996

Advisor: Mark Evan Bonds

Dissertation Title: Ignaz Pleyel and His Early String Quartets in Vienna

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Dissertation Abstract:

The 1780s are widely recognized as the decade in which the string quartet became a genre independent from other kinds of Austrian instrumental chamber music. Many Viennese composers cultivated the string quartet at this time, including Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart. One of the most popular and prolific of these quartet composers was Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831). 

The early string quartets of Pleyel, op. 1 through op. 9, were written between 1782 and 1786. Pleyel’s string quartets show great variety in their cyclical structure, e.g., in the number of movements (two, three, or four), the sequence of tempo, key, and formal structure. These quartets are mostly homophonic with the first-violin melody dominating over simple accompaniment; this texture is often identified by an amiable and light style. At the same time, Pleyel tried to emulate the quartets of Haydn and Mozart, as, for example, in the four-movement quartets, op. 3 and 5A, and in the quartets displaying a concern for motivic unity and contrapuntal texture. Our modern perception of string quartets, which is almost entirely based on those of Haydn and Mozart, has exalted the string quartets as the genre for connoisseurs, demanding the most refined taste and intellectual content. But Pleyel’s string quartets mostly appealed to the growing number of amateur musicians, and contemporaneous reception shows that the most popular quartet composer from the mid-1780s until the end of the century in Vienna was not Haydn or Mozart, but rather Pleyel.