Joseph Haydn | Biography, Compositions, & Facts (2024)

Joseph Haydn (born March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Austria—died May 31, 1809, Vienna) was an Austrian composer who was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and the symphony.

Early years

Haydn was the second son of humble parents. His father was a wheelwright, his mother, before her marriage, a cook for the lords of the village. Haydn early revealed unusual musical gifts, and a cousin who was a school principal and choirmaster in the nearby city of Hainburg offered to take him into his home and train him. Haydn, not yet six years old, left home, never to return to the parental cottage except for rare brief visits.

The young Haydn sang in the church choir, learned to play various instruments, and obtained a good basic knowledge of music. But his life changed decisively when he was eight years old. The musical director of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna had observed the boy on a visit to Hainburg and invited him to serve as chorister at the Austrian capital’s most important church. Haydn’s parents accepted the offer, and thus in 1740 Haydn moved to Vienna. He stayed at the choir school for nine years, acquiring an enormous practical knowledge of music by constant performances but, to his disappointment, receiving little instruction in music theory. He had to work hard to fulfill his obligations as a chorister, and when his voice changed, he was expelled from both the cathedral choir and the choir school.

With no money and few possessions, Haydn at 17 was left to his own devices. He found refuge for a while in the garret of a fellow musician and supported himself “miserably” with odd musical jobs. He meanwhile undertook an arduous course of self-instruction through the study of musical works—notably those of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—and of leading manuals of musical theory. A fortunate chance brought him to the attention of the Italian composer and singing teacher Nicola Porpora, who accepted him as accompanist for voice lessons and corrected Haydn’s compositions.

With persistence and energy, Haydn made progress. He was eventually introduced to the music-loving Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph von Fürnberg, in whose home he played chamber music. For the instrumentalists there he wrote his first string quartets.

Through the recommendation of Fürnberg, in 1758 Haydn was engaged as musical director and chamber composer for the Bohemian count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin. Haydn was put in charge of an orchestra of about 16 musicians, and for this ensemble he wrote his first symphony as well as numerous divertimenti for wind band or for wind instruments and strings. These early musical compositions were still conventional in character, yet a certain freshness of melodic invention and sparkle marked them as the work of a future master.

Esterházy patronage

Haydn stayed only briefly with von Morzin, as financial difficulties forced his patron to dismiss the orchestra. Soon Haydn was invited to enter the service of Prince Pál Antal Esterházy. The Esterházys were one of the wealthiest and most-influential families of the Austrian empire and boasted a distinguished record of supporting music. Prince Pál Antal had a well-appointed orchestra performing regularly in his castle at Eisenstadt, a small town some 30 miles (48 km) from Vienna. Because his aged music director was ailing, the prince appointed the relatively unknown Haydn to be assistant conductor in 1761. While the music director oversaw church music, Haydn conducted the orchestra and coached the singers in almost daily rehearsals, composed most of the music required, and served as chief of the musical personnel. Haydn carried out his duties extremely well and revealed tact, good nature, and skill in dealing with people. From his first symphonies written for the Esterházys, Haydn amply displayed his characteristic good humour and wit, as well as the dependable freshness of his musical ideas, although full maturity would come much later. His employment by the Esterházy family proved decisive for his career, and he remained in their service until his death.

In 1766 Haydn became musical director at the Esterházy court. He raised the quality and increased the size of the prince’s musical ensembles by appointing many choice instrumentalists and singers. His ambitious plans were supported by Prince Miklós, who, on the death of his brother in 1762, had become head of the Esterházy family. He was able to appreciate Haydn’s musical contributions and created an atmosphere conducive to the development and maturing of Haydn’s art. In addition to composing operas for the court, Haydn composed symphonies, string quartets, and other chamber music. The prince was a passionate performer on the baryton, and Haydn provided for his patron more than 150 compositions featuring this now-obsolete cellolike instrument.

Haydn served Prince Miklós for nearly 30 years. He frequently visited Vienna in the prince’s retinue, and on these visits a close friendship developed between himself and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The two composers felt inspired by each other’s work. Mozart declared that he had learned from Haydn how to write quartets and dedicated a superb set of six such works to his “beloved friend.” Haydn’s music, too, shows the impact of his young friend. The mature composer was by no means set in his ways; he was flexible and receptive to new ideas.

During the 1760s Haydn’s fame began to spread throughout Europe. The Austrian and Czech monasteries did much to disseminate his church music as well as his symphonies, divertimenti, sonatas, and concertos. Aristocratic patrons in south Germany, Italy, and the Austrian empire assiduously collected his music, and their libraries would eventually become important sources for copies of his work.

The period from 1768 to about 1774 marks Haydn’s maturity as a composer. The music written then, from the Stabat Mater (1767) to the large-scale Missa Sancti Nicolai (1772), would be sufficient to place him among the chief composers of the era. The many operas he wrote during these years did much to enhance his own reputation and that of the Esterházy court. Among his other important works from this period are the string quartets of Opus 20, the Piano Sonata in C Minor, and the symphonies in minor keys, especially the so-called Trauersymphonie in E Minor, No. 44 (“Mourning Symphony,” so named because its slow movement, which was a particular favourite of the composer, was performed at a memorial service for Haydn) and the “Farewell” Symphony, No. 45. For reasons that have no historical grounding, this has come to be known as Haydn’s Sturm-und-Drang (“storm and stress”) period, after a literary movement that came somewhat later; however inapt historically, the term does describe the character of many of these works and in fact has come to stand for the turgid style they so often exhibit.

The following decade and a half did even more to enhance Haydn’s fame. His operatic output continued strong until 1785, notwithstanding the destruction of the Esterházy opera house by fire in 1779. Increasingly, however, his audience lay outside his employer’s court. In 1775 he composed his first large-scale oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia, for the Musicians’ Society in Vienna; for unknown reasons, relations between Haydn and the Viennese musicians cooled considerably a few years later. By the early 1780s, though, things seemed much improved, and the Viennese firm Artaria published his six Opus 33 quartets. These important works quickly set a new standard for the genre, putting many of his competitors in this increasingly lucrative market out of business. (Mozart was a notable exception, but even he took several years to complete his own set of six quartets.) In 1784 Haydn revised Tobia for another Viennese performance, adding choral numbers and cutting back on some of the extended da capo structures, a clear sign that he was well aware of changing sensibilities. In mid-decade as well came a commission from Paris to compose a set of symphonies, and Haydn’s resulting “Paris” symphonies are a landmark of the genre. It was also about this time that he received the commission to compose the Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross; for the incorrigibly cheerful Haydn, writing seven successive dour movements was a particularly difficult undertaking, but the effort resulted in one of his most-admired works.

Haydn’s professional success was not matched in his personal life. His marriage to Maria Anna Keller in 1760 produced neither a pleasant, peaceful home nor any children. Haydn’s wife did not understand music and showed no interest in her husband’s work. Her disdain went to the extremes of using his manuscripts for pastry pan linings or curl papers. Haydn was not insensitive to the attractions of other women, and for years he carried on a love affair with Luigia Polzelli, a young Italian mezzo-soprano in the prince’s service.