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Joseph Haydn: Symphonies
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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.
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Haydn was born during the time of J. S. Bach and the final stages of the Baroque Period and contrapuntal music was well established. Haydn was very much influenced by developments made by Bach's son C. P. E. Bach who, moving away from his father's teachings, brought drama and originality to his keyboard works and helped to establish early Sonatas and Symphonies in 3 movements. Another major influence on Haydn was Johann Stamitz who was a pioneer of the Symphony. For much of his life though Haydn was at work in the Esterhazy court, with only the occasional outside influence. He therefore relied heavily on his own thoughts and ideas, and the results of his own experimentations to drive his musical thinking forward.
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Haydn is often referred to as "Papa" Haydn, and there is some justification for this. Although he did not invent either the symphony or the string quartet, he was a central figure in their development. His symphonies (especially the Paris and London sets) show a complete mastery of form and substance, setting the stage for the works of Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn's "paternity" is just as clear in the string quartets. Here Haydn helped transform the genre from little more than a string divertimento (with the emphasis on the top voice) to a type of chamber music in which all parts play an equal role. These ideas directly influenced Mozart, who responded with six quartets dedicated to Haydn (1782-85).
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Haydn died in 1809, after twice dictating his recollections and preparing a catalogue of his works. He was widely revered, even though by then his music was old-fashioned compared with Beethoven's. He was immensely prolific: some of his music remains unpublished and little known. His operas have never succeeded in holding the stage. But he is regarded, with some justice, as father of the symphony and the string quartet: he saw both genres from their beginnings to a high level of sophistication and artistic expression, even if he did not originate them. He brought to them new intellectual weight, and his closely argued style of development laid the foundations for the larger structures of Beethoven and later composers.
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Haydn's major works of this period seemed to his younger contemporaries to show a considerable influence of Mozart's mature style, and the relationship was openly reciprocal. In this decade Haydn produced about 20 symphonies, including the 6 Paris Symphonies, Nos. 82-87 (1786), and the Oxford Symphony, No. 92 (1788). He ... produced the 25 quartets constituting Opus 33 (1781), "written in a new and special manner"; Opus 42 (1785); Opus 50 (1787); Opus 54 and Opus 55 (1789); and Opus 64 (1790). His reputation had by now spread throughout Europe, despite his isolation, owing in part to his being regularly published by a leading Viennese music publisher, Artaria.
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Haydn soon learned how to do the jobs of his mother and father. He studied music with an older relative, Johann Franck. When Haydn was very young, he rubbed a stick against a piece of wood. He said that he was playing a violin. Haydn liked music, and he was to become the first great master of the symphony and string quartet.
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Symphonies