String Quartet No. 62 in C major, Op. 76, No. 3, Hob. III: 77 ‘Emperor’

Joseph Haydn composed his last six string quartets, Op. 76, between 1798 and 1798, dedicating them to the Hungarian Count Joseph Georg von Erdody. Haydn was then employed at the court of Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy II. These six quartets were Haydn’s most ambitious chamber works. Charles Burney, a music historian and composer, commented that “… they are full of invention, fire, good taste, and new effects, and one of highly-cultivated talents, who had expended none of his fire before.” The four movements String Quartet No. 62 was nicknamed ‘Emporer’ or ‘Kaiser’ due largely to its second movement’s variations on ‘Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser’ (God save Emperor Francis). This anthem was written for Emperor Francis II, which later became the national anthem of Austria-Hungary, and is the melody in the German national anthem, the Deutschlandlied, during the Weimarer Republik era.

These are four albums to listen to:
Haydn The Complete String Quartets, The Angeles String Quartet. Label: Philips.

Joseph Haydn String Quartets Op. 76 Nos. 1 – 3, Chiaroscuro Quartet. Label: BIS.

Haydn String Quartets Op. 76 Nos 1 – 3, The Lindsays. Label: ASV.

​The Teldec Recordings, Alban Berg Quartett. Label: Teldec.

Reference: Lotha, G., Gorlinski, G & Schwarm, B., (2019, August 2019), Emperor Quartet Work by Haydn, Britannica. ​https://www.britannica.com/topic/Emperor-Quartet