Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn composed works in nearly every classical genre, including symphonies, string quartets, piano trios, piano sonatas, duets for various instrumental combinations, concertos, divertimenti, oratorios, masses, operas, cantatas, and songs. Popular music histories often refer to Haydn as the “Father” of both the string quartet and the symphony, not least because he was so prolific, having composed 68 string quartets and 104 symphonies. He is best known as an innovator of great imagination and wit, as well as a bit of a music historian who incorporated operatic and Baroque forms into his instrumental music and transformed them.

Early Years: From Home to Court

Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Lower Austria, to a working-class family of amateur music-makers. As his father played the harp by ear and his mother sang, the six-year-old Joseph was able to sing along, matching their pitches perfectly. But neither of Haydn’s parents was musically trained, and wanting the best education for their son, they sent Joseph to Hainburg to become an apprentice to a distant relative, the choirmaster Johann Matthias Frankh. In addition to singing, Haydn learned to play the harpsichord and violin. In 1739, the Imperial Kapellmeister Georg von Reutter came through Hainburg, heard Haydn’s beautiful voice, and invited him to join the choir at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

After Haydn’s voice changed, his comfortable existence at St. Stephen’s came to an end; he was left to make a living much like a freelance musician would today, by busking, gigging, and giving lessons. Haydn later spoke about the experience with some bitterness: “I barely managed to stay alive by giving music lessons to children for about eight years. In this way many talented people are ruined: they have to earn a miserable living and have no time to study.” 

Haydn’s first important break came when composer Nicola Porpora hired him as an accompanist and gave him formal lessons in the fundamentals of music composition. Haydn’s position in the home of such an esteemed composer led to a distinguished career: he became music director for Count Morzin for four years, composed his first symphonies, and married Maria Anna Theresia Keller (1729–1800). In 1761, Haydn was engaged as Vice-Kapellmeister (and eventually, in 1766, Kapellmeister) at the Esterházy court and worked there full-time until 1790, serving four Princes—Paul Anton, Nikolaus I, Anton, and Nikolaus II.

Middle Years: Esterházy

Haydn split his time between Schloss Esterháza in Eisenstadt and the so-called Esterházy “Versailles” in Fertőd, Hungary. His duties included rehearsing and conducting musicians and singers, performing at the keyboard, teaching, and composing music, often to suit the tastes and interests of his master. Most notable of these “on-demand” pieces are 200 works for the baryton (a stringed instrument in the bass range, held between the knees), the favorite instrument of Nikolaus I.

There were, however, less glamorous facets of the job. For example, Haydn had to clean up what Nikolaus I called the “great disorder” in the choir loft caused by the “indolence and lack of discipline” of the musicians in the Eisenstadt Chapel Choir; additionally, he had to catalog all the music, keep all the instruments in good repair, and make sure all the musicians attended church on Sunday. As if all that were not enough, Haydn was also required to mediate personal disputes among orchestral musicians. In one instance, Haydn drew up a settlement between the court oboist and the court bassist, who had gotten into a drunken brawl at the Esterházy estate tavern, during which the oboist lost his right eye. All parties, including Haydn, signed the agreement, which stipulated that the bassist would pay the oboist’s doctor’s fees and travel expenses.

In 1779, Haydn’s contract was renegotiated, and he was now able to travel, accept commissions from abroad, and sell his works to publishers. This newfound freedom inspired a burst of creativity that produced the String Quartets, Opp. 33, 50, 54, 55, and 64, as well as the “Paris” Symphonies, Nos. 82–87. In his travels, Haydn met many celebrities of his day, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who invited him to join his Masonic lodge as well as play string quartets with him and other composers. Mozart later dedicated a set of six string quartets to Haydn.

Haydn: Quartet in D major for Strings, Hob. III:63, Op. 64, No. 5, "The Lark"

Later Years: London, Beethoven, Wealth, and Death   

After 1790, Haydn traveled more extensively, first to London at the invitation of Johann Peter Salomon, German impresario and violinist. On the way, he passed through Bonn, where he met Beethoven, who later came to Vienna to study with him. Haydn’s London sojourn produced the Symphonies Nos. 93–104. Upon his return, he composed six masses, his two great oratorios—The Creation (1796–1798) and The Seasons (1799–1801)—the famous Trumpet Concerto (1796), and the last nine of his string quartets.

Haydn: Quartet in G major for Strings, Hob. III:81, Op. 77, No. 1

Haydn died from a protracted illness on May 31, 1809, at his home in Vienna. He was by that time a very wealthy man and generously left money and gifts to numerous relatives, friends, clergy, artisans who served him, household staff, musicians, charities, and the families of his teachers.

Haydn’s Head: A True Story

In 1809, shortly after Haydn’s burial in a local Viennese cemetery, two amateur phrenologists paid a grave digger to dig up Haydn’s body, decapitate him, and give them the head, which they boiled, bleached, and studied. When Nikolaus II discovered the crime, he demanded the skull be returned and buried with its body at his estate. But that did not happen! The head was passed from hand to hand until 1895, when it came to rest for more than a half-century at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music) in Vienna; the head was returned in 1954, with great ceremony, to its final resting place in Eisenstadt.

Watching and Listening

Haydn’s string quartets comprise some of his most beautiful and innovative music. He elevated the role of the cello in the string quartet from a utilitarian bass to a full-fledged member of an integrated musical conversation among equals. The quartet was for Haydn also a petri dish in which he could experiment with short musical motives—a compositional approach that directly influenced Beethoven and, by extension, Bartók. Here are some examples from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Digital Archive that open a window on Haydn’s musical imagination:

The Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2 (1772), begins with a cello solo. The slow movement is a recitative and aria followed by a delicate minuet that defies expectations. The final movement is a fugue.

The Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2 (1781), is subtitled “The Joke.” Bruce Adolphe offers an entertaining lecture in which he discusses Haydn’s sense of humor as well as his ability to make something out of very little.

The Quartet in C Major, Op. 54, No. 2 (1788), opens with a vivace (fast movement), followed by a unique, improvisatory, Roma-style adagio (slow movement) with a repeating bass line. A fairly typical minuet leads into a final movement with three tempos, adagio-presto-adagio, as well as a lovely cello obbligato.

Haydn’s musical gravitas is on full display in the Quartet in D Major, Op. 76, No. 5 (1797). The slow movement, Largo cantabile e mesto [‘sad’], is in F-sharp major—a key that uses all available sharps—and challenges string players, even to this day.

Videos from the Archive:

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