Biography
Franz Joseph Haydn stands as the composer whose output most fully captures the goals and accomplishments of the Classical period. His single greatest contribution lay in refining sonata form, the framework of structural expectations that would exert an epochal influence on all subsequent music. Across hundreds of instrumental sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies he simultaneously opened fresh territory and supplied enduring prototypes, effectively helping establish these core genres of the classical tradition. In his later decades he also produced several masterful oratorios and masses. His operas, long overlooked, are now recognized as skillfully fashioned works meriting far more attention than they received during the twentieth century.
Haydn’s impact on later generations remains incalculable; Beethoven, his most celebrated pupil, drew direct inspiration from the older composer’s inventive resources, while traces of Haydn’s approach appear within, and at times dominate, the music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Integral to his command of form was an celebrated wit and an instinct for the unforeseen yet graceful turn. Estimates credit him with roughly 340 hours of music, exceeding the totals left by Bach, Handel, Mozart, or Beethoven, and few of these pieces lack some surprising detail or ingenious formal resolution. Such productivity stemmed not only from relentless industry and an inexhaustible inventive faculty but also from his position as the final major beneficiary of the aristocratic patronage system that had sustained European composition since the Renaissance.
Born in the modest Austrian hamlet of Rohrau, Haydn entered the choir at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral at the age of eight; his younger brother Michael Haydn, himself later a composer, soon joined him there. Once his voice changed and he was dismissed, he survived as a struggling freelance musician in Vienna throughout his teens. His situation improved in the late 1750s when members of the city’s noble houses began to notice his work, and on 1 May 1761 he entered the service of the Esterházy family. He remained with them for three decades, producing dozens of keyboard sonatas, trios for the now-obsolete baryton, and operas staged at their summer residence, Esterháza. Although musical careers have often ended tragically, Haydn lived to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The Esterházys reduced their musical establishment in 1790, yet by then Haydn’s reputation had spread throughout Europe and he was widely viewed as the foremost living composer—an honor he himself accorded to Mozart, whose friendly rivalry with Haydn enriched the output of both men.
Two visits to London in the 1790s yielded two groups of six symphonies apiece, among them the “Surprise” Symphony, works that still occupy a central place in the orchestral canon. Between 1790 and 1799 five additional sets of string quartets also appeared. Haydn’s last major achievements were a series of vivid choral compositions: the oratorios The Creation and The Seasons together with six masses. He ceased composing in 1803; thereafter he opened his letters with a brief musical tag taken from one of his part-songs and set to the words “Gone is all my strength; I am old and weak.” He died in Vienna on 31 May 1809.
Haydn’s impact on later generations remains incalculable; Beethoven, his most celebrated pupil, drew direct inspiration from the older composer’s inventive resources, while traces of Haydn’s approach appear within, and at times dominate, the music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Integral to his command of form was an celebrated wit and an instinct for the unforeseen yet graceful turn. Estimates credit him with roughly 340 hours of music, exceeding the totals left by Bach, Handel, Mozart, or Beethoven, and few of these pieces lack some surprising detail or ingenious formal resolution. Such productivity stemmed not only from relentless industry and an inexhaustible inventive faculty but also from his position as the final major beneficiary of the aristocratic patronage system that had sustained European composition since the Renaissance.
Born in the modest Austrian hamlet of Rohrau, Haydn entered the choir at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral at the age of eight; his younger brother Michael Haydn, himself later a composer, soon joined him there. Once his voice changed and he was dismissed, he survived as a struggling freelance musician in Vienna throughout his teens. His situation improved in the late 1750s when members of the city’s noble houses began to notice his work, and on 1 May 1761 he entered the service of the Esterházy family. He remained with them for three decades, producing dozens of keyboard sonatas, trios for the now-obsolete baryton, and operas staged at their summer residence, Esterháza. Although musical careers have often ended tragically, Haydn lived to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The Esterházys reduced their musical establishment in 1790, yet by then Haydn’s reputation had spread throughout Europe and he was widely viewed as the foremost living composer—an honor he himself accorded to Mozart, whose friendly rivalry with Haydn enriched the output of both men.
Two visits to London in the 1790s yielded two groups of six symphonies apiece, among them the “Surprise” Symphony, works that still occupy a central place in the orchestral canon. Between 1790 and 1799 five additional sets of string quartets also appeared. Haydn’s last major achievements were a series of vivid choral compositions: the oratorios The Creation and The Seasons together with six masses. He ceased composing in 1803; thereafter he opened his letters with a brief musical tag taken from one of his part-songs and set to the words “Gone is all my strength; I am old and weak.” He died in Vienna on 31 May 1809.
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