Consider the following job offer, made to a little-known violinist/composer in 1761. He was invited to join the staff of a music-loving prince, where it would be his responsibility to lead all rehearsals and performances, whether orchestral or chamber, with no time off allowed other than at the discretion of the prince. He would be obliged to appear each morning before the prince to see what duties would be required of him that day. Moreover, all music that he produced while employed at this court would become the property of the prince, to such an extent that the composer was forbidden to give away copies of his own compositions to any other person. Finally, however frustrated or overworked he might become, he could never resign without the explicit permission of his employer. From a twentieth-century perspective, such an offer is scarcely better than slavery, but Joseph Haydn, the man faced with the choice, accepted with alacrity, for it was highly typical of the era in which he lived, a time in which the royal courts were all-powerful. In becoming the Esterhįzy's Kapellmeister (music master), Haydn surrendered any dreams of personal freedom, but in return, received thirty years of job security, as well as the resources, musical and financial, to compose as much music as was humanly possible. It was a position that would earn for him an unequalled international reputation.
Nothing in Haydn's early years or in his family history indicated that he might attain such heights of fame. He was born in 1732 in the Austrian village of Rohrau, in a corner of the country far nearer to Hungary than to the Alps. In fact, it was in Hungary that the Haydn's origins lay; the composer's great-grandfather had been the first Haydn to settle in Austria around 1650. For the next two generations, most of the male family members were employed as wheelwrights. Even the composer's father, Mathias, worked in that profession, yet he also harbored a love of music, and developed a small talent for singing and playing the harp. Three of Mathias's seventeen children would inherit that passion. His eleventh child, Johann, would become a professional singer. His sixth child, Michael, would become a noted composer and a colleague of Mozart in Salzburg. But the greatest fame would be reserved for his second child, Franz Joseph Haydn, always known as Joseph or, in his youth, Sepperl (Joey).
Joseph's musical abilities developed early. When he was only six, he was sent away to the nearby town of Hainburg on the Danube to study music, principally singing. There, a few miles upstream from Bratislava, the boy lived and studied with the town schoolmaster, a distant family connection, who, according to Haydn's later recollections, administered "more thrashings than food." Yet poor treatment did not diminish the boy's love for music. By the time he was eight, he had attracted the attention of Georg Reutter the younger, Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Reutter arranged with Joseph's father to obtain the boy's services as a chorister. In the spring of 1740, young Haydn arrived in the imperial capital, the city which would be his home base off and on for the next seventy years.
Joseph was given extensive training as a singer, and served as one of the Cathedral's principal soloists, yet voice was not his only area of study. He also learned harpsichord, organ, violin, a little music theory, and a great deal of Latin. St. Stephen's was (and is) the principal religious institution in a strongly Catholic city, making it a superb venue in which to launch a musical career, yet a career based upon being a boy soprano is a career without much future. When his voice changed, Haydn was dismissed from the Cathedral and, at age eighteen, was left to fend for himself. He paid the rent by giving keyboard lessons, playing the organ and violin in church services, and performing with various orchestras and chamber ensembles. He also intensified his study of composition, and began to make professional contacts that would reward him in later years. Amongst those contacts were the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, the great librettist and court poet Metastasio, and the dowager Princess Esterhįzy who, it is presumed, eventually brought the talented young musician to the attention of her sons.
However, the Esterhįzys were still some years in Haydn's future, and it was in another aristocratic house that he would obtain his first official appointment. In 1758 or '59, the Count Karl Joseph Franz Morzin hired Haydn, by then in his late twenties, as his Kapellmeister. Responsibilities included composing, performing, and conducting music to entertain the court. It was a good position for a young man, but the term of employment would be brief. The Count was fiscally impractical, and soon could no longer afford to maintain an orchestra. Nonetheless, it was for Morzin, not for the Esterhįzys, that Haydn would write his First Symphony in the fall of 1759. Over one-hundred more symphonies would follow.
With the disbanding of Morzin's orchestra, Haydn was free to seek a new position. He found it with the Esterhįzys, one of the wealthiest and most influential families in all of Austria. The Esterhįzys, led by the ruling Prince Paul Anton and his successor Prince Nikolaus, were famed for their love of music and for the excellence of their musical establishment. As Haydn was still young and little known, he would have felt privileged to work there and it must have been with pleasure that he signed the contract May 1, 1761. At first, he was only Vice-Kapellmeister, serving beneath principal Kapellmeister Gregor Joseph Werner. But Werner was elderly and ill. Haydn quickly took on a greater portion of the duties, so that long before Werner's death in 1766, the younger man was already principal Kapellmeister in all but name. By the time the title was his, he had already completed several dozen symphonies, including no. 6, 7, and 8 (known as "Morning," "Noon," and "Night"), no. 22 ("The Philosopher"), no. 30 ("Alleluja"), and no. 31 ("Horn Signal").
In this same year, Prince Nikolaus built his palace of Esterhįza in the countryside near Lake Neusiedler about thirty miles south of Vienna. There he installed Haydn and all the musicians. The facilities were luxurious, but the location was remote, and for the first time since early childhood, Haydn found himself isolated from the stimulating atmosphere of Vienna. No longer was he exposed to all the latest musical developments. Now only his own works remained to him, and his ideas would be driven solely by his own imagination. A lesser talent might have stagnated in such an environment, yet Haydn thrived. As he would later recall, "My prince was content with all my works. I received approval. I could, as head of an orchestra, make experiments, observe what created an impression, and what weakened it, thus improving, adding to, cutting away, and running risks. I was set apart from the world. There was nobody in my vicinity to confuse and annoy me in my course, and so I had to become original." Nearly ten years would pass before Haydn would again be in close contact with his Viennese colleagues. In that time, he would develope a unique style audible in his middle symphonies. Astute listeners will perceive in his Symphony no. 43 ("Mercury"), no. 45 ("Farewell"), no. 48 ("Maria Theresa") and no. 55 ("The Schoolmaster") the melodic invention, the rhythmic energy, and the deft handling of instrumentation that would later influence such pivotal figures as Mozart and Beethoven. Another Haydn trademark would also emerge: the boisterous finales that seem to link Haydn's symphonies to the comedic verve of opera buffa.
Haydn's growing reputation was acknowledged in a new contract that he signed with the Esterhįzys January 1, 1779, when at last, after fifteen years of exclusive employment, he was given the right to compose for other potential patrons, if he wished, and not merely for Prince Nikolaus. This alteration in the arrangement allowed Haydn to earn a tidy extra income, and it permitted his works to gain a wider audience. Thus, it was that in 1782, he composed three symphonies (no. 76-78) for a planned English excursion that was eventually cancelled. In 1784, the new highly-regarded composer received another commission from a concert promoter in Paris requesting a set of six symphonies. Haydn put some of his best effort into the project, drawing upon various forms and moods so as to create a diversity of impression. The resulting symphonies, no. 82 through 87 (including the so-called "Bear", "Hen," and "Queen of France" symphonies), premiered the following year.
Haydn's next two symphonies, no. 88 in G and no. 89 in F, were also intended for Paris, though through an Esterhįzy connection. Johann Tost, an Esterhazy violinist who had relocated to the French capitol, was given by Haydn the scores to several string quartets and two symphonies. The works were not a gift. Haydn had asked that they be delivered to a Parisian publisher. Tost complied, but kept the funds thus obtained. Had it not been for a devoted letter-writing campaign and the intervention of his Viennese publisher, Haydn might never have collected his fee. Perhaps this conflict caused him to be more money-conscious with his next symphonic endeavors. In 1788, a music-loving nobleman, Krafft-Ernst, Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein, requested of Haydn three new symphonies, and, though the composer at first protested that he was too busy, he finally provided the requested works through the time-saving technique of sending copies of three symphonies he had just written for the French Count d'Ogny. Neither patron seems to have been troubled by this arrangement. The Count happily presented the works in concert in Paris, and the Prince invited Haydn to his castle, where the composer was royally entertained.
Three more Parisian symphonies would be added to Haydn's catalogue: no. 90 in C, no. 91 in E-flat, and no. 92 in G, all dating from 1788 and 1789. The following year, Haydn's life would undergo a sudden change. On September 28, 1790, Prince Nikolaus died, and the musical climate at Esterhįzy altered abruptly. Nikolaus' successor, Prince Paul Anton, cared little for music and expressed no interest in Haydn's greatest compositional efforts. Of the grand orchestra and opera company, Paul Anton retained only the wind band, and though he retained Haydn as Kapellmeister at full salary, the composer was given no duties whatsoever. Whether or not Haydn was ever to compose another note was a question of no interest to the new Prince. As insulting as this attitude must have seemed, the composer still used it to his advantage, persuading the prince to give him an extended leave of absence. Released at last from Esterhįza, Haydn was finally able to visit cities where his music was beloved, where his concerts would be acclaimed, where his income could receive a much appreciated boost.
English audiences were Haydn's principal target. He planned two extended concert tours to London, the first tour lasting from New Year's Day, 1791, to June, '92, the second occurring three years later. Both visits were coordinated by Johann Peter Salomon, a German-born violinist and conductor now working as a concert promoter in London. Well aware of Haydn's popularity in the English capital, Salomon arranged for Haydn to conduct weekly concerts, the highlight of which would be a series of new symphonies and other works written especially for London. His expectations of success were high, and ultimately, those expectations were rewarded. The concerts were a critical and popular success. One critic observed, "It is no wonder that to souls capable of being touched by music, Haydn should be an object of homage, and even of idolatry; for like our own Shakespeare, he moves and governs the passions at his will." Haydn's victory was so complete that even Oxford University participated, awarding him an honorary Doctorate of Music. On that occasion, his Symphony no. 92 was performed, and though the work had been composed for Paris, it would no be known forever as the "Oxford" Symphony.
For each of these two English tours, Haydn composed six symphonies, the final twelve symphonies he would ever write. At the very end of the series stands his Symphony no. 104. Its first performance, at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket on May 4, 1795, was an immense success. "I made 4000 Gulden on this evening," the composer observed to his diary. "Such a thing," he continued, "is possible only in England." But it was more than a fiscal success. Critics, too, were delighted. One review, from The Morning Chronicle, is worth quoting at length: "It is with pleasure we inform the public, that genius is not so totally neglected as some people are too apt to conform. The Benefit of Haydn, was at the Great Concert Room of the King's Theatre, on Monday night; and attended, not only by the best judges and dearest lovers of music, but by a distinguished and crowded Assembly. More than half the pieces performed were of Haydn's composition, and afforded indubitable marks of the extent and variety of his powers¼ He rewarded the good intentions of his friends by writing a new Overture [Symphony] for the occasion, which for fullness, richness, and majesty, in all its parts, is thought by some of the best judges to surpass all his other compositions. A Gentleman, eminent for his musical knowledge, taste, and sound criticism, declared this to be his opinion, that for fifth years to come Musical Composers would be little better than imitators of Haydn."
Haydn's second London visit came to an end August 15, 1795, as he returned to Vienna to resume his duties at the Esterhįzy court, where changes had occurred in his absence. The unmusical Prince Paul Anton had died. His successor, the latest Esterhįzy prince to bear the name Nikolaus, wished to restore his court's musical reputation. Haydn was willing, but having reached what he hoped would be his retirement years, worked out a gentle arrangement to suit his preferences. He would live in Vienna for most of the year, spending only the summers in the Esterhįzy's estate in Eisenstadt, thirty miles outside Vienna. His primary obligation was to provide a new mass every summer on the occasion of the princess' name day. Six of these masses were composed between 1796 and 1802. There would be no more symphonies, though he did produce a magnificent oratorio The Creation, as a reaction to the Handel oratorios he had heard in London, and six more string quartets, four published in 1799, the other two three years later.
Haydn remained productive nearly to the end of his life. Yet the principal role that he played in these last years was neither that of composer nor that of Kapellmeister. He had become, most importantly, Vienna's grand old man of music: an inspiration to younger generations, a man internationally revered even by unmusical souls. In May 1809, when Napoleon's armies captured the city of Vienna after an intense bombardment, Napoleon himself ordered that an honor guard be placed outside the home where the master composer lay on his death bed. Haydn passed away May 31, 1809, at the age of seventy-seven. At his memorial service two weeks later, Mozart's Requiem was sung in Vienna's Schottenkirche. Haydn's remains now lie in the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt, a short distance from the Esterhįzy palace where he had spent his last working years.
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