Franz Joseph Haydn
Haydn, (Franz) Joseph (b. Rohrau, 31 March 1732; d. Vienna, 31 May 1809).
Austrian composer. The son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a choirboy and taken into the choir at St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, where he sang from c.1740 to c.1750. He then worked as a freelance musician, playing the violin and keyboard instruments, accompanying for singing lessons given by the composer Porpora, who helped and encouraged him. In c.1759 he was appointed music director to Count Morzin; but he soon moved, into service as Vice-Kapellmeister with one of the leading Hungarian families, the Esterh zys, becoming full Kapellmeister on Werner's death in 1766.
In his early years Haydn chiefly wrote instrumental music, including symphonies and other pieces for the twice-weekly concerts and the prince's Tafelmusik, and works for the instrument played by the prince, the baryton (a kind of viol), for which he composed c.125 trios in ten years. There were also cantatas and a little church music. After Werner's death church music became more central, and so, after the opening of a new opera house at Eszterh za in 1768, did opera. Although his operas never attained wider exposure, Haydn's reputation had now grown and was international. Much of his music had been published in all the main European centres; under a revised contract with the Esterh za his employers no longer had exclusive rights to his music.
His works of the 1780s that carried his name further afield include piano sonatas, piano trios, symphonies and string quartets. His influential op.33 quartets, issued in 1782, were said to be "in a quite new, special manner": this is sometimes thought to refer to the use of instruments or the style of thematic development, but could refer to the introduction of scherzos or might simply be an advertising device. More quartets appeared at the end of the decade. All these show an increasing enterprise, originality and freedom of style as well as melodic fluency, command of form, and humour.
He was invited by the impresario and violinist J P. Salomon to go to London to write an opera, symphonies and other works. He composed his last 12 symphonies for performance there, where they enjoyed great success; he also wrote a symphonie concertante, choral pieces, piano trios, piano sonatas and songs (some to English words) as well as arranging British folksongs for publishers in London and Edinburgh.
Back in Vienna, he resumed work for Nikolaus Esterhazy's grandson (whose father had now died); his main duty was to produce masses for the princess's nameday. Other works of these late years include further string quartets, showing great diversity of style and seriousness of content yet retaining his vitality and fluency of utterance. The most important work, however, is his oratorio The Creation in which his essentially simple-hearted joy in Man, Beast and Nature, and his gratitude to God for his creation of these things to our benefit, are made a part of universal experience by his treatment of them in an oratorio modelled on Handle's, with massive choral writing of a kind he had not essayed before. He followed this with The Seasons, in a similar vein but more a series of attractive episodes than a whole.
Haydn died in 1809. He was widely revered, even though by then his music was old-fashioned compared with Beethoven's. He was immensely prolific: some of his music remains unpublished and little known. His operas have never succeeded in holding the stage. But he is regarded, with some justice, as father of the symphony and the string quartet: he saw both genres from their beginnings to a high level of sophistication and artistic expression, even if he did not originate them. He brought to them new intellectual weight, and his closely argued style of development laid the foundations for the larger structures of Beethoven and later composers.
Austrian composer. The son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a choirboy and taken into the choir at St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, where he sang from c.1740 to c.1750. He then worked as a freelance musician, playing the violin and keyboard instruments, accompanying for singing lessons given by the composer Porpora, who helped and encouraged him. In c.1759 he was appointed music director to Count Morzin; but he soon moved, into service as Vice-Kapellmeister with one of the leading Hungarian families, the Esterh zys, becoming full Kapellmeister on Werner's death in 1766.
In his early years Haydn chiefly wrote instrumental music, including symphonies and other pieces for the twice-weekly concerts and the prince's Tafelmusik, and works for the instrument played by the prince, the baryton (a kind of viol), for which he composed c.125 trios in ten years. There were also cantatas and a little church music. After Werner's death church music became more central, and so, after the opening of a new opera house at Eszterh za in 1768, did opera. Although his operas never attained wider exposure, Haydn's reputation had now grown and was international. Much of his music had been published in all the main European centres; under a revised contract with the Esterh za his employers no longer had exclusive rights to his music.
His works of the 1780s that carried his name further afield include piano sonatas, piano trios, symphonies and string quartets. His influential op.33 quartets, issued in 1782, were said to be "in a quite new, special manner": this is sometimes thought to refer to the use of instruments or the style of thematic development, but could refer to the introduction of scherzos or might simply be an advertising device. More quartets appeared at the end of the decade. All these show an increasing enterprise, originality and freedom of style as well as melodic fluency, command of form, and humour.
He was invited by the impresario and violinist J P. Salomon to go to London to write an opera, symphonies and other works. He composed his last 12 symphonies for performance there, where they enjoyed great success; he also wrote a symphonie concertante, choral pieces, piano trios, piano sonatas and songs (some to English words) as well as arranging British folksongs for publishers in London and Edinburgh.
Back in Vienna, he resumed work for Nikolaus Esterhazy's grandson (whose father had now died); his main duty was to produce masses for the princess's nameday. Other works of these late years include further string quartets, showing great diversity of style and seriousness of content yet retaining his vitality and fluency of utterance. The most important work, however, is his oratorio The Creation in which his essentially simple-hearted joy in Man, Beast and Nature, and his gratitude to God for his creation of these things to our benefit, are made a part of universal experience by his treatment of them in an oratorio modelled on Handle's, with massive choral writing of a kind he had not essayed before. He followed this with The Seasons, in a similar vein but more a series of attractive episodes than a whole.
Haydn died in 1809. He was widely revered, even though by then his music was old-fashioned compared with Beethoven's. He was immensely prolific: some of his music remains unpublished and little known. His operas have never succeeded in holding the stage. But he is regarded, with some justice, as father of the symphony and the string quartet: he saw both genres from their beginnings to a high level of sophistication and artistic expression, even if he did not originate them. He brought to them new intellectual weight, and his closely argued style of development laid the foundations for the larger structures of Beethoven and later composers.
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Franz Joseph Haydn
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Rohrau
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