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| A gift for brilliant synthesis of emerging styles ... Franz Joseph Haydn. Photo: DEA/A Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images |
Europe’s most celebrated composer in the late 18th century, Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was known for his brilliant synthesis of emerging styles, which helped set the course of western classical music as we know it. Famed as the father of the symphony and of the string quartet, in reality he invented neither – but he did consolidate new principles of musical form, based on balance and proportion, expectation and fulfilment. Haydn’s gift was in flexing the rules to ensure variety, creating tensions and dramatic effects. As humorous as he was earnest, Haydn always reveals his deep humanity in his music...
His life
He was born in Rohrau in 1732; his father was a wheelwright, his mother a cook, and his younger brother Michael would also be a composer. At barely six, Joseph’s gifts saw him uprooted to become a choirboy in Hainburg, then talent-spotted for St Stephen’s cathedral choir in Vienna. This experience of the last throes of baroque music stood him in good stead: Haydn would later say he learned most by listening. He became a freelance musician – singing, playing, teaching – extending his sketchy education by diligent study of counterpoint and theory. Working briefly as valet-accompanist to the composer Nicola Porpora (singing teacher of the famous castrato Farinelli), he was introduced to many of Vienna’s cultural movers and shakers, among them imperial court poet Metastasio and composers Hasse and Gluck.
Source: The Guardian
