Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) was an Austrian
composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental
in the development of chamber music such as the piano
trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him
the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of
the String Quartet". He was born in Rohrau, Austria, a
village that at that time stood on the border with
Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright
who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to
village mayor. Haydn...(+)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) was an Austrian
composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental
in the development of chamber music such as the piano
trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him
the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of
the String Quartet". He was born in Rohrau, Austria, a
village that at that time stood on the border with
Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright
who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to
village mayor. Haydn's mother Maria, née Koller, had
previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count
Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Neither
parent could read music; however, Mathias was an
enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman
period of his career had taught himself to play the
harp. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his
childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently
sang together and with their neighbours.
Haydn's parents had noticed that their son was
musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have
no chance to obtain serious musical training. It was
for this reason that, around the time Haydn turned six,
they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann
Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in
Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Frankh in his
home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off
with Frankh to Hainburg and he never again lived with
his parents.
Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn,
who later remembered being frequently hungry and
humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing. He
began his musical training there, and could soon play
both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg
heard him sing treble parts in the church choir.
Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for
the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate.
Until the later part of his life, this isolated him
from other composers and trends in music so that he
was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his
music circulated widely, and for much of his career he
was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a
friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and
the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.
Haydn's early work dates from a period in which the
compositional style of the High Baroque (seen in J.S.
Bach and Handel) had gone out of fashion. This was a
period of exploration and uncertainty, and Haydn, born
18 years before the death of Bach, was himself one of
the musical explorers of this time. An older
contemporary whose work Haydn acknowledged as an
important influence was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
Tracing Haydn's work over the six decades in which it
was produced (roughly from 1749 to 1802), one finds a
gradual but steady increase in complexity and musical
sophistication, which developed as Haydn learned from
his own experience and that of his colleagues. Several
important landmarks have been observed in the evolution
of Haydn's musical style.
In the late 1760s and early 1770s, Haydn entered a
stylistic period known as "Sturm und Drang" ("storm and
stress"). This term is taken from a literary movement
of about the same time, though it appears that the
musical development actually preceded the literary one
by a few years. The musical language of this period is
similar to what went before, but it is deployed in work
that is more intensely expressive, especially in the
works in minor keys. James Webster describes the works
of this period as "longer, more passionate, and more
daring". Some of the most famous compositions of this
time are the "Trauer" (Mourning) Symphony No. 44,
"Farewell" Symphony No. 45, the Piano Sonata in C minor
(Hob. XVI/20, L. 33), and the six "Sun" Quartets Op.
20, all from c. 1771–72. It was also around this time
that Haydn became interested in writing fugues in the
Baroque style, and three of the Op. 20 quartets end
with a fugue.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn).
Although originally composed for Piano, I created this
Interpretation of the Three Marches (Hob VIII:1-3) for
Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
