Joseph Haydn
Composer

A Wheelwright's Son With a Good Ear

I was born in Rohrau, a village near the Hungarian border, and I was baptised on 1 April 1732. My father Mathias was a wheelwright, my mother Maria had once cooked in a palace, and neither of them could read a note of music. Around the age of six I was sent to a relative in Hainburg, a schoolmaster and choirmaster, who put me to work singing. In 1740 I joined the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where I sang a great deal and was taught remarkably little about how music is actually put together.

Thrown Out, Then Thrown Into Music

Around 1749 I was dismissed from the choir, which left a teenager with a good ear and no plan. So I taught myself, working through a famous textbook by Fux and the keyboard pieces of C. P. E. Bach until they made sense to me. In 1752 I became valet and accompanist to the composer Nicola Porpora, and I put up with a fair amount of grumbling in exchange for lessons in the fundamentals of composition. That patchwork education led to my real start in 1761, when Prince Paul Anton Esterházy made me his Vice-Kapellmeister.

Living in a Prince's Orchestra Pit

In 1766 I became full Kapellmeister, which meant I was in charge of all the music at the Esterházy court. Whatever the prince needed, I had to supply, so I wrote constantly and had an orchestra to try everything out on the very next day. In 1779 my contract was renegotiated so that I could sell my music to publishers, and suddenly people far beyond the court could buy it. Around 1784 I also met Mozart, and we became close friends, which was one of the great pleasures of my life.

The Symphony That Likes to Startle You

My music reached Paris, for which I wrote a set of symphonies in 1785 and 1786, and then London, where Johann Peter Salomon invited me in 1791 and again in 1794. Those two trips gave me some of my best-loved symphonies, among them the Symphony No 94 in G major, Hob. I:94 "Surprise". The slow movement begins so softly and politely that you settle comfortably into your chair, and then comes one sudden loud chord. Oxford University also gave me an honorary doctorate in 1791, so for a while I was Doctor Haydn, which still amuses me.

A Marriage and a Musical Hint

Not everything went well for me, and my marriage in 1760 to Maria Anna Theresia Keller was an unhappy one that produced no children. My work was a far happier home than my house ever was. In 1772 I wrote the "Farewell" Symphony, and the story goes, though it rests only on what I told my biographers when I was old, that it was a gentle hint to the prince that his musicians wanted to go home to their wives in Eisenstadt. If that's true, then I may be the only composer who ever asked for a holiday in the final movement of a symphony.

The Old Man Who Kept Writing

When Prince Nikolaus died in 1790, his successor Anton dismissed most of the musicians, and in 1795 Nikolaus II revived the musical establishment with me as a part-time Kapellmeister. That freedom suited me, and in 1798 I wrote the oratorio The Creation, followed in 1801 by The Seasons. My last major work was the Harmoniemesse of 1802, after which I slowed down at last. I died in my Vienna home on 31 May 1809, aged 77, shortly after the French bombardment of the city.

A Father, a Friend and a Missing Head

People call me the "Father of the Symphony" and the "Father of the String Quartet", and I'm happy to accept the titles. Mozart dedicated a set of quartets to me, and I taught the young Beethoven in Vienna, so the three of us are known together as the First Viennese School. My own afterlife was stranger, because phrenologists stole my head soon after I was buried. The skull was finally reunited with the rest of me in 1954, and now I rest in the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt.

What I'd Like You to Take Home

I hope my music gives you the feeling of being let in on a good joke. Listen for the moments when I make you expect one thing and then do another, because that's where I enjoyed myself most. You don't need to know anything about music for that, only a willingness to pay attention and to smile now and then. If you laugh a little at the right moment, then I've done what I set out to do.