Joseph Haydn
"I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and so I was forced to become original."
At a glance 🔭💭
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Those close to him ⏳🌊
- FamilyMathias Haydn
His father, an amateur harpist, whose folk songs sung each evening became the first roots of Haydn's music.
- TeacherNicola Porpora
He treated Haydn harshly, using him as a servant, yet taught him composition and the Italian art of singing.
- FamilyMaria Anna Keller
His wife, married in 1760; she was indifferent to music, and the couple had no children.
- PatronageNikolaus Esterházy
The patron who employed Haydn for some 30 years; the isolation of his court, cut off from the world, ended up spurring original composition.
- FriendshipWolfgang Amadeus Mozart
A friend bound to Haydn by deep mutual esteem; Mozart dedicated string quartets to Haydn, and Haydn long mourned his early death.
- InfluenceGeorge Frideric Handel
They never met, but the performance of "Messiah" that Haydn heard in London in 1791 was the decisive spur for "The Creation" and "The Seasons."
I. The boy from Rohrau · 1732–1740 (age 0–8)
(Birth) He was born on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, a border village east of Vienna, Austria, and was baptized the next day, April 1. His father, Mathias Haydn, was a wheelwright who made carriage wheels, and his mother, Maria Koller, had been a cook in the manor of Count Harrach, the local lord. He was the second of twelve children, several of whom died young. (Music) His father was an amateur harpist with no formal training, and every evening he and Haydn's mother sang folk songs together. He could not read music, but he filled the house with songs learned by ear, and young Joseph grew up listening to them. Haydn later said that the roots of his musical sensibility lay in the songs of that humble home. (Separation) When he was six, a relative, Johann Matthias Franck, recognized his talent and took him to the neighboring town of Hainburg to begin a formal musical education. Life away from his parents was hard. Haydn later recalled that in Franck's house he often went hungry and was sometimes beaten, yet it was there that he first learned to read music and to play a range of instruments. (Brothers) His younger brother Michael Haydn later made his name as a composer in Salzburg, and another brother, Johann Evangelist, became a singer who would perform in Joseph's orchestra. It was rare for three brothers from a poor country craftsman's household to all make music their trade.
II. St. Stephen's and the streets · 1740–1759 (age 8–27)
(Discovery) In 1740, Georg von Reutter, Kapellmeister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, stopped in Hainburg in search of boys with good voices and chose the eight-year-old Haydn for the boys' choir. Moving to Vienna, he spent some 9 years singing there. (Self-taught) The choir offered only singing and rudimentary instrumental lessons, with almost no instruction in composition. Haydn taught himself, tracking down Johann Joseph Fux's treatise on counterpoint and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's keyboard sonatas and studying them late into the night. The habit he formed in these years, wrestling with scores without a proper teacher, remained his way of working for the rest of his life. (Expulsion) When his voice broke, Reutter decided he was no longer of any use. According to one story, a prank in which he snipped off a fellow chorister's pigtail with scissors gave Reutter the pretext to cane him and throw him out. Around 1749, the seventeen-year-old Haydn was cast onto the streets of Vienna with no money and nowhere to sleep. (Hardship) For several years he drifted from garret to garret, teaching violin and keyboard and earning small change playing serenades. He entered the service of the Italian composer Nicola Porpora as valet and accompanist, polishing shoes and tending his clothes in exchange for lessons in composition and Italian vocal technique. Porpora treated him roughly, but Haydn endured the humiliation and absorbed the idiom of Europe's upper-class musical world. Around this time he met patrons such as Countess Thun and Baron Fürnberg, and his name gradually began to be known.
III. Marriage and a first Kapellmeister post · 1759–1766 (age 27–34)
(Morzin) In 1759 he won his first formal post, as Kapellmeister to Count Karl von Morzin, a Bohemian nobleman. Here he wrote his first symphony, for a small orchestra. In a secure position, he could for the first time experiment freely with orchestral writing under his own name. (Marriage) The following year, 1760, he married Maria Anna Keller, the daughter of a wigmaker. The story goes that the woman he had really loved was her younger sister Therese, but when Therese entered a convent he was matched with the elder sister instead. The marriage creaked from the start. His wife cared nothing for his music, and they were so ill-suited that an anecdote survives of her using his manuscripts to line pastry pans. They had no children. (Employment) When Count Morzin's finances faltered and the orchestra was disbanded, Haydn moved in 1761 to the Esterházy family, great Hungarian magnates, as vice-Kapellmeister. Under the aging chief Kapellmeister Gregor Werner he assisted with church music and honed his craft, and in 1766, when Werner died, he at last became full Kapellmeister. It took less than thirty-four years for a poor wheelwright's son to become music director to one of the foremost noble houses in Europe.
His first symphony, written for Count Morzin's small orchestra, and his first step as a court Kapellmeister.
- The first movement opens with an orchestral effect that swells from quiet to loud (crescendo), showing that the young Haydn had absorbed a technique then in vogue with the Mannheim orchestra.
- The second movement is a simple, songlike piece for strings alone, without winds, revealing the restrained scoring typical of his early works.
- The horn calls near the end of the third movement borrow the air of hunting music, reflecting the tastes of aristocratic society at the time.
IV. Isolation and creation at Eszterháza · 1766–1790 (age 34–58)
(Isolation) Prince Nikolaus Esterházy was a patron with a taste for splendor. He built a new palace, Eszterháza, in the middle of the Hungarian plain and moved his orchestra there, and far from Vienna, Haydn lived virtually cut off from the world. He later recalled: "I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and so I was forced to become original." Over nearly 30 years of isolation he wrote symphonies, string quartets and operas in an experimental spirit and perfected a language all his own. (Farewell) In 1772, realizing that his musicians were weary of being separated from their families for so long, Haydn wrote the last movement of Symphony No. 45 so that the players would snuff out their candles and leave the stage one by one. When the two violins left at the end quietly brought the piece to a close, the prince understood the message and gave the orchestra leave the next day. (Mozart) In the early 1780s he met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna. Despite their difference in age, the two deeply respected each other's gifts and sometimes played chamber music together. Mozart dedicated six string quartets to Haydn, and Haydn told Mozart's father, Leopold, "Your son is the greatest composer I know." In Vienna at the same time, Christoph Willibald Gluck's reform operas were the talk of the town, and Haydn too held his work in high regard. (Lover) In these years he grew close to Luigia Polzelli, a singer and the wife of Antonio Polzelli, an Italian violinist in the orchestra, and they exchanged letters for many years. A record also survives suggesting he believed her son Alois Anton might be his own. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, he found solace in such attachments.
Written on behalf of musicians living apart from their families; in the final movement the players actually leave one by one.
- In the final adagio (slowly), the score directs each player to snuff out their candle and leave the stage as their part ends, so you can hear the ensemble actually thinning out.
- The quiet duet traded by the two violins left at the end is read as a final farewell from Haydn himself and his concertmaster.
- The choice of F-sharp minor, a rare key for the time, lends a dark, restless color, and the work is often mentioned alongside the so-called Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) tendency.
A set Haydn himself said was written "in an entirely new and special manner"; it prompted Mozart to dedicate string quartets to him.
- In the scherzo used in place of the minuet (a triple-meter movement faster and more playful than a minuet), you can hear Haydn's characteristic humor.
- The texture, in which four instruments converse as equals, is far more refined than in string quartets of the previous generation.
- The finale of No. 2, the 'Joke' quartet, is famous for its repeated false cadences (passages where the piece only seems to end), which trick concert audiences into applauding too soon.
V. Freedom in London · 1791–1795 (age 59–63)
(Freedom) In 1790 Prince Nikolaus died, and his successor, Prince Anton, who had no interest in music, disbanded the orchestra. He left Haydn only a nominal salary, in effect setting him free. After long years bound to the court, he could at last go where he pleased. (London) At the invitation of the impresario Johann Peter Salomon, he visited London twice, in 1791 and 1794. His new symphonies thrilled audiences, and Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate in music. Unlike his Vienna years, when he was treated as a servant bound to the court, in London he experienced for the first time a public and a market that lionized the artist. He also grew close to the widow Rebecca Schroeter, with whom he exchanged tender letters. (Handel) In 1791, at the Handel commemoration at Westminster Abbey, he heard "Messiah" sung by hundreds of voices and was profoundly shaken. He never forgot the overwhelming power of that chorus, and the experience became the seed of the great oratorios he would later write. (Loss and a pupil) In 1792, while in Vienna between his London stays, he took the young Ludwig van Beethoven as a pupil. Their temperaments clashed and the relationship was not smooth, but Haydn recognized his talent. Earlier, in late 1791, he had heard in London that Mozart had died, and he grieved deeply. He had once said he hoped to bring Mozart to London to work alongside him, which made the loss all the more painful.
A piece that triumphed before London audiences, it was the fruit of a newfound freedom, his first direct meeting with the public beyond the shadow of the court.
- In the 2nd movement's theme and variations, a quiet melody flows along until a sudden, tremendously loud chord (fortissimo) bursts in; this is the origin of the nickname 'Surprise,' and legend has it that the composer meant to jolt awake listeners who had dozed off at the premiere.
- After this sudden chord, the quiet theme resumes as if nothing had happened, and in that moment one can sense Haydn's characteristic mischievous humor.
- The lively theme of the 4th movement borrows folk-dance rhythms, designed to fall familiarly on the ears of London audiences.
VI. The Creation and The Seasons · 1795–1803 (age 63–71)
(Return) In 1795 he returned to Vienna for good. The new prince, Nikolaus II Esterházy, revived the orchestra on a smaller scale and called him back, but this time his duties were light, amounting to little more than writing one Mass each summer. Now past sixty, he was the most revered composer in Europe. (Creation) Inspired by the Handel choruses he had heard in London, he wrote the oratorio The Creation to a libretto prepared by Baron Gottfried van Swieten. At its 1798 premiere, the introduction depicting chaos and the explosive chord set to the words "Let there be light" overwhelmed the audience. Then, in 1801, he completed The Seasons, a portrait of rural life through the four seasons. Both works expressed a devout wonder at the nature God had made, in keeping with the simple, unshakable faith he held all his life. (Anthem) In 1797 he composed a song for Emperor Francis, "God Save Emperor Francis." The melody would later serve as the national anthem of Austria and of Germany, and he himself reused it as the theme of the 2nd movement of his String Quartet Op.76-3. Though raised in frugality, by this time he had amassed a considerable fortune, and he bought a house in the Viennese suburbs, where he tended a garden and prepared for his remaining years.
A monumental work that grew from the deep impression Handel's Messiah had made on him in London, it expresses wonder at faith and at nature.
- The introduction, 'The Representation of Chaos,' has no clear tonality and mingles dissonances, painting the primordial state before order existed.
- The moment when the chorus, following the words "Let there be light," bursts into a sudden C major tutti is counted the most famous passage in the entire oratorio.
- In Part 2, the passage in which the orchestra imitates a lion's roar, a tiger's movements, and the wriggling of worms through instrumental sound is often cited as a classic example of nature painting in music.
- The duet of Adam and Eve, with its pastoral and tender melody, offers a human moment set against the oratorio's grandeur.
A monumental late work on a libretto by Baron van Swieten, depicting the four seasons in the countryside, it carries a deep affection for the simple life.
- The introduction to 'Spring' depicts nature emerging from winter, conveying the turn of the season through gradually brightening orchestral colors.
- The thunderstorm scene in 'Summer' depicts thunder and lightning with a violent tutti that marshals the winds and timpani (drums).
- The hunting chorus in 'Autumn' borrows horn-call melodies to paint the vigor of the outdoors.
- The old man's monologue near the end of 'Winter' quietly looks back on the close of life, and many listeners hear in it Haydn's own old age.
VII. Last days · 1803–1809 (age 71–77)
(Decline) From around 1803 his memory and strength declined markedly, and he could no longer finish new works. He suffered for years from an operation to remove a nasal polyp and from recurring swelling, and he would tell visitors, half in self-mockery, that he had become a worn-out old instrument. (Siege) In the spring of 1809, Napoleon's French army besieged and bombarded Vienna. Even when shells fell nearby and shook the house, he is said to have reassured his family and servants, telling them, "As long as Haydn is here, nothing will happen." One French officer posted a guard of honor before his house, and a story survives that the officer consoled him by singing an aria from The Creation himself. (Last melody) A few days before his death, he raised himself from his sickbed and played his own Emperor's Hymn three times on the piano. It was the last habit of a man who had always been gentle and regular in his ways. On May 31, 1809, he died in Vienna at the age of seventy-seven. (Afterward) He was buried in the Hundsturm cemetery, but before long two men obsessed with phrenology stole his skull from the grave. Not until 1954, 145 years after his death, were his body and skull reunited and laid to rest whole in the family tomb at Eisenstadt. This composer, who had kept to a simple faith and honest labor all his life, could finally rest in peace only after strange vicissitudes even in death.
A work built on the Emperor's Hymn he himself had written; only days before his death, Haydn was still playing this melody on the piano.
- The 2nd movement takes the Emperor's Hymn as its theme in variation form (a form that repeats a single theme transformed in various ways), with the four instruments passing the melody from one to the next, so that each time a different instrument sings the theme.
- This 2nd-movement theme would later become the national anthem of Austria and of Germany, so for many listeners it arrives as a familiar melody.
- In the 1st movement, lively rhythms alternate with contrasting lyrical melodies, revealing the mature sense of balance of Haydn in his late years.
Notes on terms 📚🔎
Symphony
A large-scale instrumental work for orchestra in several movements. Haydn refined the form into a standard for the composers who followed.
String quartet
A chamber ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello, and the music written for it. Haydn essentially established the framework of this ensemble and is called 'the father of the string quartet.'
Kapellmeister
The highest post at an aristocratic court, responsible for all its music, covering composition, conducting, and the management of the musicians.
Oratorio
A large-scale vocal work that sets biblical or religious subjects for soloists·chorus·orchestra without staging. The form carries on the tradition of Handel.
Sonata form
A way of structuring a movement in which a theme is presented, developed, and then recapitulated. It became the basic framework of Classical instrumental music.
Variation form
A compositional technique that repeats a single theme transformed in various ways. Each variation dresses the melody, harmony, and rhythm differently.
Crescendo
An orchestral effect that swells gradually from a quiet sound. Fashionable with the Mannheim orchestra in the 18th century, it also appears in Haydn's early symphonies.
Scherzo
A movement in triple time, faster and more playful in feel than the minuet. Haydn was the first to take it up with enthusiasm, in his string quartets.