Haydn, Franz Joseph

Haydn was the last great composer who served as a court composer and musician for counts and princes throughout most of his life, for whom he composed music, unprecedented in quantity and quality. Operas, symphonies, vocal and instrumental music, chamber music and pieces for gigantic orchestras - all were provided for his masters' demand.

His musical career took him from place to place; he began as a chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, later he was appointed as a kapellmeister in the palace at Esterháza, where he served the Prince, but the latter's death in 1790 allowed Haydn to travel to London, back to Eisenstadt, and then he came back to retire in Vienna. He died there in 1809, as the soldiers of Napoleon entered the city.

He is considered the father and the first great master of the string quartet, and his student Mozart even dedicated a series of quartets to him. Haydn also created another chamber musical form - the piano trio.

For some time, he wrote masses, required by an Austrian prince he served, who disliked instrumental music, and it was at that time when he wrote his famous oratorio "The Creation" ("Die Schöpfung"). His oratorios were inspired by hearing Handel's "Messiah" at Westminster Abbey, during his visit to London. He wrote over one hundred symphonies, the most familiar of which are the "The Surprise", No. 96 and "The London" Symphony No. 104. He devoted his Trumpet Concerto to the novelty then recently invented - a trumpet with valves and keys. He was one of Beethoven's teachers, and one of the most important composers in music history, also considered as "the father of symphony".

Haydn also composed the "Emperor’s Hymn", adopted as the Austrian and later German national anthem.

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