A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: Haydn

It has occurred to me that there has been a glaring omission from my series of articles about the great composers. Where’s Haydn? My answer actually fits in perfectly with my relationship to this fine composer. I had forgotten him, as I have done frequently during my career, and there is no real reason I can think of for doing so. Perhaps, in my mind, he was not as great and glamorous as Mozart, nor as brilliant and transcendent as Beethoven, nor as tragically short-lived as Schubert. Maybe he suffered by being around at the same time as these three all -time greats, lagging slightly behind in my estimation. Whatever, as they say, I mean to put right my exclusion and laud one of the greatest composers of vocal music who has ever lived, and whose oratorio, ‘The Creation’, stands out as one of the pinnacles of music, and is one of my favourite pieces to sing. 

Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau on 31st March 1732. Neither of his parents could read music, but his father, a wheelwright who also served as a sort of village mayor, was a keen folk musician, having taught himself to play the harp. The village is in what is now Lower Austria, close to the linguistic border with Hungary. Part of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, in Haydn’s day the border was nominal, as the greater Empire stretched away to the east, but the linguistic boundary remained. As Hungarian is a language unlike almost any other, the difference between the German and Hungarian mindsets was, and is, enormous, and indeed in the years prior to Haydn’s birth, there had been several incursions by the Kurutz, a group of ethnic Hungarians opposed to Habsburg rule. We should remember, in addition, that in 1683, less than 50 years before Haydn’s birth, the Turkish Ottoman Empire had been besieging Vienna, and that only the epoch-defining Battle of Vienna that year, saw the beginning of the removal of the threat of invasion and Turkish Muslim domination. The same year that saw the birth of Handel and Bach in northern Germany could have seen Vienna ruled by the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha! By the time of Haydn’s birth, the Habsburgs had taken over great swathes of the former Ottoman Empire, but the linguistic border remained, really close to Vienna, as it still does. 

Haydn’s parents saw quite early on that he was talented as a musician and he was sent away to Hainburg on the Danube, close to the modern border with Slovakia, where he lived as a music apprentice to a relative, Johann Frankh. He learned harpsichord and violin, and developed a sweet voice, which took him in 1740 to Vienna, where for 9 years he was a chorister at St Stephen’s Cathedral. His sense of humour and taste for practical jokes meant that he was always getting into trouble, and as a young adult he found himself taking on all sorts of jobs to make ends meet. Gradually, through his singing and playing, he attracted the notice of aristocratic patrons, and soon began to be noticed as a composer too. In 1756, while teaching keyboard and voice, he wrote the first of his string quartets, and soon was in great demand. In 1757, he was appointed Kapellmeister to Count Morzin, who had a fine house in Vienna, and an estate in Bohemia, near Pilsen.  He earned a salary of 200 Gulden, with free board and lodgings, and at last could afford to take time to compose. Sadly, the count began to have money problems, and Haydn, having just married Anna Maria Keller, moved to the employ of the far wealthier Prince Esterhazy at Eisenstadt in Burgenland to the south of Vienna, again near a Hungarian linguistic border. This was to be his base for most of the rest of his life, and we must thank the Esterhazy family for their important place in the history of music. 

These years with the Esterhazys were hugely productive, and during this time Haydn went a long way towards perfecting his musical style, which can be described as bridging the chasm between the baroque and romanticism, defined as the pure Classical style. Mozart took this style into the realms of genius, and Beethoven propelled it, through his own genius, forwards to the Romantic Era. The string quartet and the symphony were largely invented by Haydn, and our debt to him is enormous. 

As part of his duties in Eisenstadt, and later at Esterháza, a new palace built in the 1760s in rural Hungary, he was responsible for putting on operas for the entertainment of the family and the local aristocracy. Haydn threw himself into the task, writing his own operas and also producing others’ works, and, although it cannot be said that he was a great operatic composer, his works are pleasant enough. I have heard a couple and found them inoffensive. His great forte at this time was for instrumental music. The prince decided to take up the baryton, an instrument like the bass viol, but with extra strings for plucking and enriching the sound, and so Haydn wrote scores of scores for this instrument.  

His career took a turn for the better in 1779, when a new contract was drawn up, giving Haydn much more control over his works. He could now negotiate with other patrons and publishers, and soon established an international reputation, although still spending most of his time in deepest Burgenland, by the Neusiedlersee, working for the Esterhazy family. It must have been a most enviable situation, as the area is lovely, with an agreeable climate and a long tradition of good food and delicious wines. He found more time to go up to Vienna, where he became friends with the young ‘tyro’ composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom he met around 1784. Apparently, the two composers played string quartets together, and Haydn was admitted to the same Masonic Lodge as Mozart in 1785. Both were open admirers of each other’s music, and I suppose it is predominantly Mozart’s early death which prevented a blossoming of their friendship. It was Haydn’s bad luck, to some extent, that, as a friend of Mozart and a tutor to Beethoven (about which more later), this exceptional composer has seen his fame eclipsed by the two younger men. In any other age, he would have been seen as a giant, but the overwhelming genius of Mozart and Beethoven, have consigned poor Haydn to the second division. It’s a bit like the Three Tenor phenomenon of the 1990s – Pavarotti, Domingo, and the Other One! Poor José Carreras, whose career had been severely interrupted by leukaemia, was not on a par with the other two by this time but had to be part of ‘the Three’ for publicity! I’m sure he did all right financially, but his place in history will be different. 

Nonetheless, by 1790, Haydn had become quite famous. However, in that year, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy died, and was succeeded by his son Anton who was much less interested in music. The new prince dismissed most of the court musicians, keeping Haydn on with a reduced salary and fewer duties. Realising the importance, however, of his valuable asset, he was unwilling to part with Haydn altogether, but gave him freedom to work elsewhere if desired. Consequently, the composer accepted an offer from the impresario Salomon to come to England to conduct some concerts and write some music. Haydn arrived in London, having crossed the Channel on New Year’s Day 1791, seeing the sea for the first time, and was delighted to find a public almost in a frenzy of excitement at his arrival. His music was very much in vogue at the time in London, and he was able to enjoy his success. Having spent so much time at Eisenstadt, with occasional outings to Vienna, it must have been a wonderful thing to pitch up in a completely different country and find he was a star! Audiences flocked to his concerts, clamouring to see the famous composer in the flesh, and he at last became financially secure. He had time to travel a little in England, notably going to Oxford to receive an honorary doctorate, and the visit was judged a huge success. 

On his way to London, Haydn had stopped in Bonn, where he met the promising young composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven, and on his way back to Vienna, he collected Beethoven and took him to Austria to be his pupil. One assumes that Haydn must have made these journeys to and from England keeping well clear of France, which was in the throes of the Revolution, and was definitely a place to avoid. It is difficult to imagine now what people thought of the goings on there, and how it affected people’s lives. Maybe there were simply rumours and stories, but it is hard to tell. We know that about this time, Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, travelled to England, having planned to visit Marie Antoinette in Paris, but wisely decided to give the French capital a miss! 

Returning to Vienna, Haydn discovered that his protégé, Mozart, had died, which presumably came as a great shock. I have never fully grasped how Mozart went from lauded composer of great operas, like ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Magic Flute’, wonderful symphonies and chamber music, and some measure of fame, to his pauper’s grave. Haydn must have been deeply affected, but at least he had the other finest composer of all time to work with! He taught Beethoven in Vienna, and took him to Eisenstadt, where, with Anton still prince and, somewhat like our present royal family here in Britain, disinterested in music, the two had time to work on harmony and counterpoint. 

Having enjoyed his time in London, and being underused in Eisenstadt, Haydn went back to England in 1794, for his second triumphant stay, this time as a well-known star, and once again, was lionised by the public. More marvellous music was written and performed, notably the 99th, 100th and 101st symphonies, and everywhere he went, people cheered and raised their hats. He was delighted to experience the oratorios of Handel, the previous star Germanic composer in London, and determined to write something to rival the ‘Messiah’. Thus was ‘The Creation’ forming in his thoughts, and it is this magnificent work that I would like to look at in the second part (not before time, you say; isn’t this meant to be a singer’s guide?)