Portrait by Thomas Hardy, 1792
Franz Joseph Haydn[1][2] (March 31 1732 –
May 31 1809) was one of the most prominent composers of the classical period, and is called by some the
"Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String
Quartet".
A life-long resident of Austria, Haydn spent most of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family on their remote
estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, "forced to
become original".[3]
Joseph Haydn was the brother of Michael Haydn, himself a highly regarded composer, and
Johann Evangelist Haydn, a tenor.
Life
Childhood
Joseph Haydn was born in the Austrian village of Rohrau, near the Hungarian border. His father was Mathias Haydn,
a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Haydn's
mother, the former Maria Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of
Rohrau. Neither parent could read music. However, Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician,
who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp. According to
Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their
neighbors.[4]
Haydn's parents noticed that their son was musically talented and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any
serious musical training. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Franck, the
schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Franck in
his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Franck to Hainburg (seven miles away) and never again lived with
his parents. He was six years old.
Life in the Franck household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry[5] as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing.[6] However, he did begin his musical training there, and soon was
able to play both harpsichord and violin. The people of
Hainburg were soon hearing him sing treble parts in the church choir.
There is reason to think that Haydn's singing impressed those who heard him, because two years later (in 1740) he was brought
to the attention of Georg von Reutter, the director of music in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, who was touring the
provinces looking for talented choirboys. Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and soon moved
off to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister, the last four in the company of his younger brother
Michael.
Like Franck before him, Reutter did not always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed. The young Haydn greatly looked
forward to performances before aristocratic audiences, where the singers sometimes had the opportunity to satisfy their hunger by
devouring the refreshments.[7] Reutter also did little to
further his choristers' musical education. However, St. Stephen's was at the time one of the leading musical centers in Europe,
with many performances of new music by leading composers. Haydn was able to learn a great deal by observation, simply by serving
as a professional musician there.[8]
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
Struggles as a freelancer
By 1749, Haydn had finally matured physically to the point that he was no longer able to sing high choral parts. On a weak
pretext, he was summarily dismissed from his job. He was sent into the streets with no home to go to[9] but had the good fortune to be taken in by a friend, Johann Michael Spangler, who
for a few months shared with Haydn his family's crowded garret room. Haydn was able to begin immediately his pursuit of a career
as a freelance musician.
During this arduous time, Haydn worked at many different jobs: as a music teacher, as a street serenader, and eventually as
valet–accompanist for the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, from whom he later said he
learned "the true fundamentals of composition".[10]
When he was a chorister, Haydn had not received serious training in music theory and composition, which he perceived as a
serious gap. To fill it, he worked his way through the counterpoint exercises in the text
Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux, and carefully studied the work of
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whom he later acknowledged[11] as an important influence.
As his skills increased, Haydn began to acquire a public reputation, first as the composer of an opera, Der krumme Teufel "The Limping Devil", written for the comic actor Johann
Joseph Felix Kurz, whose stage name was "Bernardon". The work was premiered successfully in 1753, but was soon closed down
by the censors.[12] Haydn also noticed, apparently
without annoyance, that works he had simply given away were being published and sold in local music shops.[13]
With the increase in his reputation, Haydn eventually was able to obtain aristocratic patronage, crucial for the career of a
composer in his day. A Countess Thun, having seen one of Haydn's compositions, summoned him and engaged him as her singing and
keyboard teacher. The Countess in turn recommended Haydn to Baron Carl Josef Fürnberg, for whom
the composer wrote his first string quartets, premiered at the baron's country estate; and it was Fürnberg who recommended Haydn
to Count Morzin, who in 1757[14] became his first full time employer.[15]
The years as Kapellmeister
Portrait by Ludwig Guttenbrunn, ca. 1770
Haydn's job title under Count Morzin was Kapellmeister, that is, music director. He led
the count's small orchestra and wrote his first symphonies for this ensemble.
In 1760, with the security of a Kapellmeister position, Haydn married. His wife was the former Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia
Keller (1729–1800), the sister of Therese (b. 1733), with whom Haydn had previously been in love. Haydn and his wife had a
completely unhappy marriage,[16] from which the laws of
the time permitted them no escape; and they produced no children. Both took lovers.[17]
Count Morzin soon suffered financial reverses that forced him to dismiss his musical establishment, but Haydn was quickly
offered a similar job (1761) as Vice Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family, one of
the wealthiest and most important in the Austrian Empire. When the old Kapellmeister, Gregor
Werner, died in 1766, Haydn was elevated to full Kapellmeister.
As a "house officer" in the Esterházy establishment, Haydn wore livery and followed the family
as they moved among their various palaces, most importantly the family's ancestral seat Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt and later on Eszterháza, a grand new palace built in rural Hungary in the 1760s. Haydn had a huge range of
responsibilities, including composition, running the orchestra, playing chamber music for
and with his patrons, and eventually the mounting of operatic productions. Despite this workload, the job was in artistic terms a
superb opportunity for Haydn.[18] The Esterházy princes
(first Paul Anton, then most importantly Nikolaus I) were musical connoisseurs who
appreciated his work and gave him daily access to his own small orchestra.
During the nearly thirty years that Haydn worked at the Esterházy court, he produced a flood of compositions, and his musical
style continued to develop. His popularity in the outside world also increased. Gradually, Haydn came to write as much for
publication as for his employer, and several important works of this period, such as the Paris
symphonies (1785–1786) and the original orchestral version of The Seven
Last Words of Christ (1786), were commissions from abroad.
Haydn also gradually came to feel more isolated and lonely, particularly as the court came to spend most of the year at
Esterháza, far from Vienna, rather than the closer-by Eisenstadt.[19] Haydn particularly longed to visit Vienna because of his friendships there.[20]
Of these, a particularly important one was with Maria Anna von Genzinger
(1750–93), the wife of Prince Nikolaus's personal physician in Vienna, who began a close, platonic, relationship with the
composer in 1789. Haydn wrote to Mrs. Genzinger often, expressing his loneliness at Eszterháza and his happiness for the few
occasions on which he was able to visit her in Vienna; later on, Haydn wrote to her frequently from London. Her premature death
in 1793 was a blow to Haydn, and his F minor variations for piano, Hob. XVII:6,
may have been written in response to her death.[21]
Portrait of Mozart by Joseph Lange
Another friend in Vienna was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom Haydn met sometime
around 1784. According to later testimony by Michael Kelly and others, the two
composers occasionally played in string quartets together. Haydn was hugely impressed
with Mozart's work and praised it unstintingly to others. Mozart evidently returned the esteem, as seen in his dedication of a
set of six quartets, now called the "Haydn" quartets, to his friend. For further
details see Haydn and Mozart.
The London journeys
In 1790, Prince Nikolaus died and was succeeded by a thoroughly unmusical prince who dismissed the entire musical
establishment and put Haydn on a pension. Freed of his obligations, Haydn was able to accept a lucrative offer from
Johann Peter Salomon, a German impresario, to visit England and conduct new symphonies with a large orchestra.
The visit (1791–1792), along with a repeat visit (1794–1795), was a huge success. Audiences flocked to Haydn's concerts; Haydn
augmented his fame and made large profits, thus becoming financially secure. Charles
Burney reviewed the first concert thus: "Haydn himself presided at the piano-forte; and the sight of that renowned
composer so electrified the audience, as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that had ever been caused by
instrumental music in England."[22]
Musically, the visits to England generated some of Haydn's best-known work, including the Surprise, Military,
Drumroll, and London symphonies, the Rider quartet, and the "Gypsy Rondo" piano trio. The only misstep in the venture was an opera, Orfeo ed
Euridice, also called L'Anima del Filosofo, which Haydn was contracted to compose, but whose performance was blocked
by intrigues.[23]
Portrait of Beethoven as a young man by Carl Traugott Riedel (1769 – 1832)
Between visits Haydn was for a time the teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Beethoven found Haydn unsatisfactory as a teacher and sought help from others; the relationship between the two was sometimes
rather tense. For discussion of their relationship, see Beethoven and his
contemporaries[24].
Final years in Vienna
Haydn returned to Vienna in 1795, moved into a large house in the suburb of Gumpendorf,[25] and turned to the
composition of large religious works for chorus and orchestra. These include his two great oratorios (The Creation and The Seasons) and six masses for the Eszterházy family, which by this time was once again headed by a musically-inclined prince.
Haydn also composed instrumental music: the popular Trumpet Concerto and the
last nine in his long series of string quartets, including the Fifths, Emperor, and
Sunrise quartets.
In 1802, an illness from which Haydn had been suffering for some time had increased in severity to the point that he became
physically unable to compose. This was doubtless very difficult for him because, as he acknowledged, the flow of fresh musical
ideas waiting to be worked out as compositions did not cease. Haydn was well cared for by his servants, and he received many
visitors and public honours during his last years, but they could not have been very happy years for him. During his illness,
Haydn often found solace by sitting at the piano and playing Gott erhalte Franz
den Kaiser, which he had composed himself as a patriotic gesture in 1797.[26] This melody later was used for the Austrian and German national anthems.
Haydn died at the end of May in 1809, shortly after an attack on Vienna by the French army under Napoleon. Among his last words was his attempt to calm and reassure his servants when cannon shot
fell in the neighborhood.[27]
Character and appearance
James Webster writes of Haydn's public character thus: "Haydn's public
life exemplified the Enlightenment ideal of the honnête homme (honest
man): the man whose good character and worldly success enable and justify each other. His modesty and probity were everywhere
acknowledged. These traits were not only prerequisites to his success as Kapellmeister,
entrepreneur and public figure, but also aided the favourable reception of his music."[28]. Haydn was especially respected by the Eszterházy court musicians whom he
supervised, as he maintained a cordial working atmosphere and effectively represented the musicians' interests with their
employer; see Papa Haydn and the tale of the "Farewell" Symphony.
Haydn had a robust sense of humour, evident in his love of practical jokes[29] and often apparent in his music; and he had many friends.
For much of his life he benefited from a "happy and naturally cheerful temperament" (Dies 1810, 91), but in his later life, there
is evidence for periods of depression, notably in the correspondence with Mrs.
Genzinger and in Dies's biography, based on visits made in Haydn's old age.
Haydn was a devout Catholic who often turned to his rosary when he had trouble composing, a practice that he usually found to be effective.[30] He normally began the manuscript of each composition with "in nomine
Domini" ("in the name of the Lord") and ended with "Laus Deo" ("praise be to God").[31]
Haydn was short in stature, perhaps as a result of having been underfed throughout most of his youth. He was not handsome, and
like many in his day he was a survivor of smallpox, his face being pitted with the scars of
this disease. His early biographer Dies wrote, "he couldn't understand how it happened that in his life he had been loved by many
a pretty woman. 'They couldn't have been led to it by my beauty'". [32]
Works
James Webster summarizes Haydn's role in the history of classical music
as follows:[33] "He excelled in every musical genre… He
is familiarly known as the 'father of the symphony' and could with greater justice be thus regarded for the string quartet; no
other composer approaches his combination of productivity, quality and historical importance in these genres."
Structure and character of the music
A central characteristic of Haydn's music is the development of larger structures out of very short, simple musical
motifs, often derived from standard accompanying figures. The music is often quite
formally concentrated, and the important musical events of a movement can unfold rather quickly.[34]
Haydn's work was central to the development of what came to be called sonata form. His
practice, however, differed in some ways from that of Mozart and
Beethoven, his younger contemporaries who likewise excelled in this form of
composition. Haydn was particularly fond of the so-called "monothematic exposition", in
which the music that establishes the dominant key is similar or identical to the opening theme. Haydn also differs from Mozart
and Beethoven in his recapitulation sections, where he often rearranges the order
of themes compared to the exposition and uses extensive thematic development.[35]
Haydn's formal inventiveness also led him to integrate the fugue into the classical style and
to enrich the rondo form with more cohesive tonal logic (see sonata rondo form). Haydn
was also the principal exponent of the double variation form – variations on two
alternating themes, which are often major- and minor-mode versions of each other.
Perhaps more than any other composer's, Haydn's music is known for its humour.[citation needed] The most famous example is the sudden loud chord in the slow movement of
his "Surprise" symphony; Haydn's many other musical jokes include numerous false
endings (e.g., in the quartets Op. 33 No. 2 and Op. 50 No. 3), and the remarkable rhythmic illusion placed in the trio section
of the third movement of Op. 50 No. 1.
Much of the music was written to please and delight a prince, and its emotional tone is correspondingly upbeat.[citation needed] This tone also reflects, perhaps,
Haydn's fundamentally healthy and well-balanced personality. Occasional minor-key works, often deadly serious in character, form
striking exceptions to the general rule. Haydn's fast movements tend to be rhythmically propulsive and often impart a great sense
of energy, especially in the finales. Some characteristic examples of Haydn's "rollicking" finale type are found in the
"London" symphony No. 104, the string quartet Op. 50 No. 1, and the piano trio
Hob XV: 27. Haydn's early slow movements are usually not too slow in tempo, relaxed, and reflective. Later on, the emotional
range of the slow movements increases, notably in the deeply felt slow movements of the quartets Op. 76 Nos. 3 and 5,
symphony No. 102, and piano trio Hob XV: 23. The minuets tend to have a strong downbeat and a clearly popular character. As early as Op. 33 (1781) Haydn turned
some of his minuets into "scherzi" which are much faster, at one beat to the bar.
Evolution of Haydn's style
Haydn's early work dates from a period in which the compositional style of the High Baroque
(seen in Bach and Handel) had gone out of fashion.
This was a period of exploration and uncertainty, and Haydn, born 18 years before the death of Bach, was himself one of the
musical explorers of this time.[36] An older contemporary
whose work Haydn acknowledged as an important influence was Carl Philipp Emanuel
Bach.[37]
Tracing Haydn's work over the five decades in which it was produced (roughly, 1749 to 1802), one finds a gradual but steady
increase in complexity and musical sophistication, which developed as Haydn learned from his own experience and that of his
colleagues. Several important landmarks have been observed in the evolution of Haydn's musical style.
In the late 1760s and early 1770s Haydn entered a stylistic period known as "Sturm und
Drang" (storm and stress). This term is taken from a literary movement of about
the same time, though it appears that the musical development actually preceded the literary one by a few years.[38] The musical language of this period is similar to what went
before, but it is deployed in work that is more intensely expressive, especially in the works in minor keys. James Webster
describes the works of this period as "longer, more passionate, and more daring."[39] Some of the most famous compositions of this time are the "Farewell" Symphony No. 45, the piano sonata in C minor (Hob. XVI/20, L. 33), and the six string
quartets of Op. 20 (the "Sun" quartets), all from 1772. It was also around this time that Haydn became interested in writing
fugues in the Baroque style, and three of the Op. 20
quartets end with such fugues.
Following the climax of the "Sturm und Drang", Haydn returned to a lighter, more overtly entertaining style. There are no
quartets from this period, and the symphonies take on new features: the first movements now sometimes contain slow introductions,
and the scoring often includes trumpets and timpani. These
changes are often related to a major shift in Haydn's professional duties, which moved him away from "pure" music and toward the
production of comic operas. Several of the operas were Haydn's own work (see
List of operas by Joseph Haydn); these are seldom performed today. Haydn
sometimes recycled his opera music in symphonic works,[40] which helped him continue his career as a symphonist during this hectic decade.
In 1779, an important change in Haydn's contract permitted him to publish his compositions without prior authorization from
his employer. This may have encouraged Haydn to rekindle his career as a composer of "pure" music. The change made itself felt
most dramatically in 1781, when Haydn published the six string quartets of Opus 33, announcing (in a letter to potential
purchasers) that they were written in "a completely new and special way". Charles Rosen
has argued that this assertion on Haydn's part was not just sales talk, but meant quite seriously; and he points out a number of
important advances in Haydn's compositional technique that appear in these quartets, advances that mark the advent of the
Classical style in full flower. These include a fluid form of phrasing, in
which each motif emerges from the previous one without interruption, the practice of letting accompanying material evolve into
melodic material, and a kind of "Classical counterpoint" in which each instrumental part
maintains its own integrity. These traits continue in the many quartets that Haydn wrote after Opus 33.[41]
In the 1790s, stimulated by his England journeys, Haydn developed what Rosen calls his "popular style", a way of composition
that, with unprecedented success, created music having great popular appeal but retaining a learned and rigorous musical
structure.[42] An important element of the popular style
was the frequent use of folk or folk-like material, as discussed in the article
Haydn and folk music. Haydn took care to deploy this material in appropriate
locations, such as the endings of sonata expositions or the opening themes of finales. In such locations, the folk material
serves as an element of stability, helping to anchor the larger structure.[43] Haydn's popular style can be heard in virtually all of his later work, including the twelve
London symphonies, the late quartets and piano trios, and the two late
oratorios.
The return to Vienna in 1795 marked the last turning point in Haydn's career. Although his musical style evolved little, his
intentions as a composer changed. While he had been a servant, and later a busy entrepreneur, Haydn wrote his works quickly and
in profusion, with frequent deadlines. As a rich man, Haydn now felt he had the privilege of taking his time and writing for
posterity. This is reflected in the subject matter of The Creation (1798) and
The Seasons (1801), which address such weighty topics as the meaning of life and the
purpose of humankind, and represent an attempt to render the sublime in music. Haydn's new intentions also meant that he was
willing to spend much time on a single work: both oratorios took him over a year to complete. Haydn once remarked that he had
worked on The Creation so long because he wanted it to last.[44]
The change in Haydn's approach was important in the history of music, as other
composers soon were following his lead. Notably, Beethoven adopted the practice of taking his time and aiming high.[45]
Identifying Haydn's works
Haydn's works are listed in a comprehensive catalogue prepared by Anthony van
Hoboken. This Hoboken catalogue provides each work with an identifying
number, called its Hoboken number (abbreviation: H. or Hob.). The string quartets also have Hoboken numbers, but are usually
identified instead by their opus numbers, which have the advantage of indicating the groups
of six quartets that Haydn published together; thus for example the string quartet Opus 76, No. 3 is the third of the six quartets published in 1799 as Opus 76.
Media
.jpg){kind=small}
