IT IS OFTEN described as one of the worst examples of bad timing in the history of classical music. Admittedly there was nothing Joseph Haydn could have done about it. When he was 24 years of age a baby boy was born, also in Austria. That child grew into Mozart, a mercurial genius who died early in strange circumstances and whose myth in death as much as his musical legacy overshadowed Haydn, who lived on until 1809, two months shy of his 77th birthday.
Sunday will mark the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death, an end that came as Napoleon’s troops pounded Vienna. The composer had by then endured several years of pain from arteriosclerosis. Born during the baroque period, the son of a music-loving, harp-playing wheelwright in the village of Rohrau, about 25 miles east of Vienna, young Franz Joseph Haydn was a gifted singer. When he was eight years old he joined the choir of St Stephen’s cathedral in Vienna and remained there for nine years. By the time he left the choir he was able to make a modest living from giving music lessons. He also worked as a freelance musician and was lucky in meeting an Italian composer, Nicola Porpora, through whom he not only met other musicians, but learnt about Italian music.
In 1759 Haydn secured his first major appointment as Kapellmeisterto a count. At that time he was occupied with composing instrumental and keyboard works and was beginning to experiment with a form he would master, the string quartet.
There is a good-natured quality about Haydn’s work; he can be playful, even subversive, pull off little tricks and surprises, but don’t underestimate the cerebral dimension of his art. He maintained he wrote music so that “the weary and worn, or the man burdened with affairs, may enjoy a few moments of solace and refreshment.” There are none of the financial pressures dogging Mozart, or the personal trauma which tormented Beethoven a one time student of Haydn.
Despite an unhappy marriage and at least two passionate relationships, the relative lack of drama in Haydn’s life may explain why he is so often overlooked. Added to this is the fact that when he entered the service of the Esterházy family in 1761 he was expected to apply himself to composition. Prince Paul Anton Esterházy lived in a great castle in Eisenstadt, not far from Vienna; the Great Hall of the Schloss hosted the premiere of many of Haydn’s works. It still has the wooden floor that he insisted should be laid “for acoustica reasons” over the original marble floor.
During the 1760s another Esterházy palace, Eszterháza was built just within the present- day Hungarian borders.
Acknowledged as possibly the most beautiful country house in Central Europe, it is a triumph of late-Rococo, early Neoclassical style. By 1766 Haydn was based there, cut off from the musical world and charged with composing. He would live there for almost 30 years. It begins to explain how he wrote so much. By the end of his life Haydn had composed 104 symphonies, Beethoven wrote nine. It explains why Haydn was an innovator; he felt he was forced to be original.
With his isolation came the freedom to play with convention.
Some have described Haydn as a revolutionary, others dispute this. Still his string quartets, of which he composed three sets of six, established the four-movement pattern, with fast outer movements containing a slow movement and a minuet. His string quartets also chronicle his musical evolution.
There are many sides to Haydn; he composed 20 operas, some 15 of which survive. If none stand comparison with Mozart, they enjoyed popularity in his lifetime because of Haydn’s flair for mixing the tragic with the comic, and his comedy is funny. Throughout his career he composed sacred and choral music. True, none of it approaches the grandeur of Bach, but then what does? Two of Hadyn’s greatest Masses, the Mass in D minor, known as “Nelson” and the Mass in B flat, “Harmoniemesse” stand equal to any in the canon. During the years of the Sturm und Drang movement German literature, drama and painting began to express an intensity of emotion that is reflected in Haydn’s symphonies from the same period.
Between 1757 and 1795 he wrote 104 symphonies. One major episode in his life could be seen to inspire a single great piece – his first trip to London. By then he had an international reputation, he was also 59 years old.
While in England he attended a performance of Handel's oratorio, Israel in Egypt. It inspired Haydn's greatest choral work, Die Schöpfung, ( The Creation) (1798). In it Haydn proved that he could write choruses to match Handel. Drawing on the Bible and Paradise Lost, it is a work of passion and bold orchestral colour. Our Lady's Choral Society will perform The Creationunder Prionnsias O'Duinn with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at the National Concert Hall on Sunday as other choirs from around the world join in performances marking the composer's death.
With Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in 1801 Haydn produced another oratorio, this time drawing on an English pastoral epic poem. If the story is not as lofty as that of the creation of the world, nevertheless, with its energy and grace there are elements of Mozart's Symphony No 40 as well as Die Zauberflöte, The Magic Flute.
What to select from Haydn's canon? The Second Cello Concerto in D major, the six so-called London Symphonies or the Trumpet Concerto composed in 1796 for a famous Viennese trumpet player? The string quartets? His keyboard trios? Accept it is an impossible choice and make your way to the National Concert Hall for The Creation. Haydn was right – as the inscription on his tombstone in Vienna reads, "Not entirely will I die."