Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, on March 31, 1732. From
1740 to 1749 he was a member of the choir of St. Stephen’s in Vienna,
attending its school for a comprehensive musical training. For several
years after that he lived in Vienna, teaching music, and completing
various hack assignments, while pursuing serious composition. In 1755 he
was appointed by Baron Karl Josef Fuernberg to write music for and
direct the concerts at his palace; it was in this office that Haydn
wrote his first symphonies and string quartets as well as many other
orchestral and chamber-music works. From 1758 to 1760 he was
Kapellmeister to Count Ferdinand Maximilian Morzin. In 1761 Haydn became
second Kapellmeister to Prince Paul Anton Esterházy at Eisenstadt,
rising to the post of first Kapellmeister five years after that. Haydn
remained with the Esterházys until 1790, a period in which he arrived at
full maturity as a composer. His abundant symphonies, quartets, sonatas
and other compositions spread his fame throughout the length and breadth
of Europe. After leaving the employ of the Esterházys, Haydn paid two
visits to London, in 1791 and again in 1794, where he directed
orchestral concerts for which he wrote his renowned _London_ symphonies.
At the dusk of his career, Haydn produced two crowning masterworks in
the field of choral music: the oratorios _The Creation_ (1798) and _The
Seasons_ (1801). Haydn died in Vienna on May 31, 1809.
Haydn was an epochal figure during music’s classical era. He helped to
establish permanently the structures of the symphony, quartet, sonata;
to arrive at a fully realized homophonic style as opposed to the
contrapuntal idiom of the masters who preceded him; and to arrive at new
concepts of harmony, orchestration, and thematic development. He helped
pave the way for the giants who followed him, most notably Mozart and
Beethoven, who helped carry the classical era in music to its full
flowering. To his musical writing Haydn brought that charm, grace,
stateliness, beauty of lyricism that we associate with classicism, and
with it a most engaging sense of humor and at times even a remarkable
expressiveness. Most of Haydn’s music belongs to the serious concert
repertory. He did write some music intended for the masses—mainly the
Contredanses, German Dances and Minuets which, after all, was the dance
music of the Austrian people in Haydn’s time. Haydn’s _German Dances_
and Minuets are especially appealing. The former was the forerunner of
the waltz, but its melodies and rhythms have a lusty peasant quality and
an earthy vitality; the latter was the graceful, sedate dance of the
European court. Twelve of Haydn’s _German Dances_ and twelve of his
Minuets (the latter called _Katherine Menuetten_) were written in the
closing years of his life and published in 1794; they were intended for
the court ball held at the Redoutensaal in Vienna where they were
introduced on November 25, 1792. The _German Dances_ here have sobriety
and dignity, and are often filled with Haydn’s remarkable innovations in
melodic and harmonic writing; the Minuets are consistently light and
carefree in spirit.
The _Gypsy Rondo_—often heard in various transcriptions, including one
for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler—comes from the Piano Trio No. 1
in G major, op. 73, no. 2 (1795) where it is the concluding movement
(Rondo all’ ongarese). It is in Hungarian style, vivacious in rhythmic
and melodic content; it is for this reason that Haydn himself designated
this music “in a gypsy style” and Kreisler’s transcription bears the
title of _Hungarian Rondo_.
Of Haydn’s more than one hundred symphonies the one occasionally given
by pop orchestras is a curiosity known as the _Toy Symphony_. Actually
we now know that Haydn never really wrote it, but it was the work of
either Mozart’s father, Leopold, or Haydn’s brother, Michael. But it was
long attributed to Joseph Haydn, and still is often credited to him.
This little symphony in C major, which is in three short movements, was
long believed to have been written by Haydn during his visit to
Berchtegaden, Bavaria, in 1788 where he became interested in toy
instruments. The symphony uses numerous toy instruments (penny trumpet,
quail call, rattle, cuckoo, whistle, little drum, toy triangle, and so
forth) together with three orthodox musical instruments, two violins and
a bass.
Joseph Haydn was also the composer of Austria’s national anthem, “_Gott
erhalte Franz den Kaiser_.” He was commissioned to do so in 1797 by the
Minister of the Interior to help stir the patriotic ardor of Austrians;
it was first performed in all Austrian theaters on the Emperor’s
birthday on February 12, 1797. The Emperor was deeply impressed by the
anthem. “You have expressed,” he said, “what is in every loyal Austrian
heart, and through your melody Austria will always be honored.” Haydn
himself used the same melody in one of his string quartets: as the slow
second movement in which it receives a series of variations. It is for
this reason that this quartet, in C major, op. 76, no. 3, is popularly
known as the _Emperor Quartet_.