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Joseph Haydn: Franz Joseph Haydn
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Franz Joseph Haydn is a cornerstone of the Classical Period of music. He came at a time when the influence of the church on musical development was diminishing and this influence was moving towards the nobility who employed composers to provide entertainment for their guests. In Haydn's case his employment by one family was a happy and rewarding one, which gave him a lot of freedom to explore many different aspects of music. This experimentation and the experience gained allowed Haydn to play a crucial role in establishing many of the key classical forms such as the Symphony, the String Quartet, the Sonata and the Concerto. Although versions of all these forms already existed, Haydn was the principle composer to establish and promote them. A key component of all these forms is something called "Sonata Form" which was normally used for the first (and sometimes later) movements of a works.
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Franz Joseph Haydn is the composer who, more than any other, epitomizes the aims and achievements of the Classical era. Perhaps his most important achievement was that he developed and evolved in countless subtle ways the most influential structural principle in the history of music: his perfection of the set of expectations known as sonata form made an epochal impact. In hundreds of instrumental sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies, Haydn both broke new ground and provided durable models; indeed, he was among the creators of these fundamental genres of classical music. His influence upon later composers is immeasurable; Haydn's most illustrious pupil, Beethoven, was the direct beneficiary of the elder master's musical imagination, and Haydn's shadow lurks within (and sometimes looms over) the music of composers like Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
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Franz Joseph Haydn , 1732-1809, Austrian composer, one of the greatest masters of classical music. As a boy he sang in the choir at St. Stephen's, Vienna, where he received his principal musical training. He struggled in poverty for years, earning a meager living as a teacher and accompanist. Eventually, his compositions came to the attention of some of Vienna's music-loving aristocrats, and under their patronage his career progressed rapidly. Most of his prodigious musical output was produced during the 29 years of his service as musical director to the princes Esterházy, beginning in 1761. During the 1780s, when he received commissions from London and Paris and honors from all over Europe, he formed a close friendship with Mozart, an association that influenced the music of each.
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At the age of eight, Franz Joseph Haydn became a choirboy for the Viennese Cathedral. Again, the food was far less than what a growing youth needed and the choir children's treatment in general was harsh. Haydn stayed, learning all that he could about church music, until puberty changed the timbre of his voice and he was cast into the streets of Vienna with nothing more than a change of clothes. At the age of seventeen, Haydn found lodging and work. He gave music lessons and played in the serenades to earn money. An open door presented itself in the form of an Italian composer named Niccolo Porpora who hired Haydn as his accompanist.
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Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, in 1732, the son of a wheelwright who was ... an amateur harpist and singer. Joseph showed early musical ability, and possessed a fine singing voice. At age five, he was taken into the care of Johann Mathais Franck, a schoolmaster at Hainburg. At Hainburg, Joseph was taught the violin, clavier, and the rudiments of music. Three years later, his singing was noticed by Karl Georg Reutter, choirmaster at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Karl took Joseph as a chorister to Vienna, where he stayed for the next nine years, receiving a general education as well as tuition in violin, clavier, and singing.
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Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was born in a small village near Vienna, the second of 12 children. His father loved music, putting on family concerts in which all the children participated. Early on he showed talent as a singer, and his parents sent him away at age six to receive a musical education. When he was eight he became a choirboy at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. After a successful career there, his voice changed, and he eked out a living as a musician, playing and teaching. He slowly gained fame, finally finding success by the late 1750s.
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Franz Joseph Haydn