Joseph Haydn

Although he didn't invent the genre, the "father of the symphony", who composed around a hundred of them, did define its classical form, as he did for the string quartet. A prolific and influential musician, Joseph Haydn retained his creativity right up to the end of his life, marked by sacred works such as The Creation. Born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, on March 31, 1732, Franz Joseph Haydn was the son of a village wheelwright and a former cook, who shared their love of music. The second of twelve children, two of his brothers chose the same path: composer Michael Haydn (1737-1806) and tenor Johann Evangelist Haydn (1743-1805). Taken in hand by his cousin Johann Mathias Franck, he received general and artistic instruction and sang in the choir of St. Stephen's Church in Vienna until his voice matured. Already practicing the violin, he made a living by giving lessons, learning the harpsichord with Johann Michael Spangler and rubbing shoulders with the poet Métastase. He entered the service of the composer Nicola Porpora and studied theoretical works by Johann Joseph Fux and C. P. E. Bach. The young Haydn composed his first works and took up the string quartet with Baron Karl Joseph von Fürnburg, who invited him to his chamber music concerts at Weinzierl Castle in 1757. The following year, Haydn was engaged by Count Morzin, for whom he composed his first symphonies, and in November 1760 married the sister of one of his pupils, Maria Anna Keller. The year 1761 marked the turning point in the composer's life, as he entered the service of the Estherázy family, one of the wealthiest in Hungary. Hired on May 1 by Prince Paul Anton Esterházy at the Eisenstadt palace, then by his brother Nikolaus who succeeded him on his death the following year, Haydn took up the post of vice-choirmaster, then that of choirmaster on the death of Gregor Joseph Werner in 1766. Isolated from the outside world in Esterháza Castle, where he had his own orchestra and opera house, he diversified his output as required between operatic works, concerts of chamber music or with orchestra, and religious ceremonies, forging his own musical style through the symphonic trilogy formed by No. 6 "Matin", No. 7 "Midi" and No. 8 "Soir" (1761), as well as the string quartets of Op. 20 of 1772 and Op. 33 of 1781. In all, more than eighty of the one hundred and four symphonies he composed, most of his eighty-three quartets and most of his keyboard sonatas were produced until Nikolaus Estherázy's death in 1790. Moreover, as the patron was a fervent viola da gamba player, one hundred and seventy-five pieces dedicated to the instrument must be added to the corpus. Haydn used the symphonic realm as a vast field of orchestral exploration, developing not only form through skilful architecture, but also the sonority of orchestral instruments, brought to the fore when they were not the subject of a program. Aware of the ideas of the Sturm und Drang movement, he nicknamed his 22nd "The Philosopher" (1764), the 31st "The Call of Horns " (1765), the 38th "The Echo " (1768), the 39th "La Mer troublée " (1767), the 44th "Funèbre" (1771), the 47th "Le Palindrome " (1772), the 49th "La Passion" (1768), the 53rd "L'Impériale" (1780), and so on. In the last movement of the 45th symphony, known as "Les Adieux " (1772), the musicians stop playing in turn, down to the solo violin. In 1779, living apart from his wife, he began a ten-year intimate relationship with the soprano Luigia Polzelli, who was married and had two children, and had recently arrived at the château. With the Prince's conversion to opera, the Kapellmeister conducted some one hundred works by his colleagues in addition to his own operatic output, giving over a thousand performances in the space of a decade. Highly regarded by European musical society, Haydn saw several of his works premiered in Vienna, including the opera Lo Speziale in 1770 and the oratorio Il ritorno di Tobia in 1775. In 1785, he was commissioned by Cadiz Cathedral to write a work on the Passion of Christ, which resulted in the Seven Last Words of Christ. In Paris, where his Stabat Mater of 1767 had supplanted that of Pergolesi, the Concert de la Loge Olympique in Paris commissioned him to write six symphonies known as the "Parisiennes " (1785-1786), from no. 82 to no. 87, including no. 82 "L'Ours", the famous no. 83 "La Poule" and no. 85 "La Reine". In Vienna, in 1784, he met Mozart, with whom he maintained a sincere friendship based on mutual admiration, giving rise to a reciprocal interplay of influence, as exemplified by the six Quartets of Op. 10, "dedicated to Haydn" (1785). In 1789, he began an epistolary relationship with Marianne von Genzinger, pianist and wife of the prince's physician, to whom he dedicated one of his keyboard sonatas (Hob. XVI/49). On the death of Nikolaus Estherázy "The Magnificent" on September 28, 1790, Haydn retained his title and pension from his successor Paul II Anton and, without any specific instructions, accepted an invitation from the impresario Johann Peter Salomon to travel to London, where he conducted his own works and discovered those of Handel in situ. These two visits, from January 1791 to the summer of 1792, and then from January 1794 to August 1795, enabled him to extend his fame, and to be rewarded both with honors such as an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, and with large sums of money for his performances. On the first trip, he learned of Mozart's death and met Beethoven on his return, while on the second he performed his "London" Symphonies (from no. 93 to the last, no. 104, known as "London"), including the well-known no. 94 "La Surprise " with its unexpected fortissimo tutti, no. 100 "Militaire", no. 101 "l'Horloge" with its pendulum movement, and no. 103 "Roulement de timbales". Back in Austria, he divided his time between Vienna and Eisenstadt Palace, where Prince Nikolaus II Estherázy II now reigned. Haydn turned to religious music, composing six masses, including the Heilingemesse (1796), the Nelson Mass (1798) and the Theresienmesse (1799), in honor of Empress Maria Theresa. Above all, he created two of his greatest oratorios, La Création (1798) and Les Saisons (1801). He also created his last innovative string quartets, the six of Op. 76 and the two of Op. 77. No. 3 of Op. 76, known as the "Emperor" Quartet, contains the theme of the Austrian anthem. The health of the man known to his friends as "Papa Haydn" declined seriously. He gave up his position in 1803 and retired to his home in Gumpendorf, just as Napoleon had conquered Vienna. After a final public appearance to see Antonio Salieri conduct The Creation on March 27, 1808, Joseph Haydn died on May 31, 1809, aged 77.