(b Rohrau, Lower Austria, 31 March 1732; d Vienna, 31 May 1809).

Austrian composer, brother of michael

Haydn. Neither he nor his contemporaries used the name Franz, and there is no reason to do so today. He
began his career in the traditional patronage system of the late Austrian Baroque, and ended as a ‘free’
artist within the burgeoning Romanticism of the early 19th century. Famous as early as the mid-1760s, by
the 1780s he had become the most celebrated composer of his time, and from the 1790s until his death
was a culture-hero throughout Europe. Since the early 19th century he has been venerated as the first of
the three ‘Viennese Classics’ (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven). He excelled in every musical genre; during the
first half of his career his vocal works were as famous as his instrumental ones, although after his death
the reception of his music focussed on the latter (except for The Creation). 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.
In the 20th century he was understood primarily as an ‘absolute’ musician (exhibiting wit, originality of
form, motivic saturation and a ‘modernist’ tendency to problematize music rather than merely to
compose it), but earnestness, depth of feeling and referential tendencies are equally important to his art.

During the first half of the 1760s Haydn composed chiefly instrumental music, as far as we know
exclusively for performance at court. His most productive genre was the symphony, with about 25 works;
in addition to nos.6–8 they include nos.22 (‘The Philosopher’) and 30 and 31 (‘Alleluja’, ‘Hornsignal’).

Childrens choir

Teacher (pieces for pupils)

Court = vice Kapellemaster (symphonies-vocal works-trio) / Kapellemaster (sacred works – changed-

missa-opera)/

During the late 1760s and early 1770s Haydn continued to compose
instrumental works, albeit at a slower rate than before (except during
the operatic hiatus of 1770–72). But they became longer, more
passionate and more daring. The symphonies comprise nos.26, 35,
38, 41–9, 52, 58–9, 65; many of these are among his best-known
before the London period, as is evident from their nicknames, which
include ‘Lamentatione’, ‘Maria Theresa’, ‘La passione’, ‘Mourning’,
‘Farewell’ and ‘The Schoolmaster’. He also took up the string quartet,
not cultivated since the 1750s, producing three increasingly
imposing opera in rapid succession: op.9 (c1769–70), op.17 (1771)
and op.20 (1772).
A few concertos date from this period as well. Many of these works
are so bold and expressive that in the 20th century they became
subsumed under the appellation Sturm und Drang. The term has been
criticized: taken from the title of a play of 1776 by Maximilian Klinger,
it properly pertains to a literary movement of the middle and late
1770s rather than a musical one of about 1768–72, and early
proponents of this interpretation assumed implausibly and without
evidence that these works expressed a ‘romantic crisis’ in Haydn’s
life. Nevertheless, his style during these years was distinctive;
furthermore, similar traits are found in the contemporary music of
many other Austrian composers, including the young Mozart’s G
minor Symphony k183/173dB and D minor String Quartet k173.

In Haydn’s case this development may have been related to his turn
to vocal music beginning in 1766: perhaps the demand for expressive
depth in sacred works and dramatic effectiveness in opera, as well as
the tendency towards through-composition in both genres, stimulated
this expansion of his instrumental music.
n any case, from about 1773 Haydn’s instrumental music became
generally lighter in style – the reason (if any) is again unknown; there
is no evidence of princely intervention – and was again addressed to
amateurs as well as connoisseurs. The string quartet was abandoned.
Both the symphonies of 1773–5 (nos.50–51, 54–7, 60, 64, 66–9) and
two contemporaneous sets of keyboard sonatas, hXVI:21–6 (1773)
and especially 27–32 (1774–6), exemplify this mixed orientation; the
former was published in Vienna in 1774 (the first authorized
publication of Haydn’s music) with a dedication to the prince, who
presumably paid the costs. A third set (nos.35–9 and 20), again mixed
in style, was published in 1780.