Oxford Music Online

(i) Vice-Kapellmeister, 1761–5.

The Esterházy family, the richest and most influential among the Hungarian nobility, had long been important patrons of culture and the arts; Prince Paul Anton was a music lover and capable performer. Haydn’s predecessor as Kapellmeister, Gregor Joseph Werner, had been appointed in 1728; he was a solid professional who composed church music in the first instance, but also symphonies, trio sonatas and other instrumental works including an entertaining ‘Musical Calendar’ (1748); in 1804 Haydn honoured his predecessor by publishing six introductions and fugues from his oratorios, arranged for string quartet. Paul, who from 1750 to 1752 was ambassador in Naples and travelled widely elsewhere, collected a large quantity of vocal and instrumental music (he had a catalogue made during the period 1759–62; it lists one symphony by Haydn, acquired in 1760). By about 1760 Werner was becoming infirm and his musical orientation increasingly conservative; Paul set about modernizing and enlarging the establishment, appointing several new musicians before recruiting Haydn and others in 1761.

Haydn’s appointment was in the first instance as vice-Kapellmeister; the first and last clauses of his contract address this somewhat delicate situation, while illustrating the Esterházys’ concern for the welfare of valued employees:… Whereas
1^mo  a Kapellmeister at Eisenstadt named Gregorius Werner has devoted many years of true and faithful service to the princely house, but now, on account of his great age and the resulting infirmities … is not always capable of performing his duties, therefore said Gregorius Werner, in consideration of his long service, shall continue to serve, as Ober-Kapellmeister. On the other hand the said Joseph Haydn, as vice-Kapellmeister, shall be subordinate to … said Gregorio Werner, quà Ober-Kapellmeister, in regard to the choral music [Chor-Musique] in Eisenstadt; but in all other circumstances where any sort of music is to be made, everything pertaining to the music, in general and in particular, is the responsibility of said vice-Kapellmeister.
14^mo  His Highness not only undertakes to retain the said Joseph Haydn in service during this period [three years, renewable], but, should he provide complete satisfaction, he shall also have expectations of the position of Oberkapellmeister.Although the contract is dated 1 May 1761, Haydn may have begun working for the court earlier that year. Griesinger states that he began on 19 March 1760; this cannot be correct, unless it was an error for 1761 (Dies also names 1760), and the specific date ‘19’ is suspect (the surviving contracts begin on the first of the month). But the Prince was in Vienna in March 1761 (music was performed at the Esterházy palace several times that month); indeed he may have remained there much of the time until his death in March 1762. Moreover, the contracts with several musicians appointed 1 April 1761 include a clause requiring them to obey not only the Kapellmeister but the vice-Kapellmeister, but the latter position did not exist until Haydn’s appointment. Hence he may well have selected most or all of the musicians hired from April on, and so helped to shape the newly constituted orchestra himself.

Haydn’s contract, once thought to be demeaning, is now understood as a standard document of its type; its terms were favourable to a young man of 29 with only one previous position to his credit. He was no servant, but a professional employee or ‘house officer’; he received 400 gulden a year, plus various considerations in kind including uniforms and board at the officers’ table. He was in charge of the ‘Camer-Musique’, which comprised not only all instrumental music but secular vocal and stage music as well. He had full authority over the musicians, both professionally and in terms of their behaviour; but he was close to many of them personally as well, often serving as godfather to their children. His duties included responsibility for the musical archives and instruments (including purchase, upkeep and repair), instruction in singing, performing both as leader and as soloist (‘because [he] is competent on various instruments’) – and, of course, composition:4^to  Whenever His Princely Highness commands, the vice-Kapellmeister is obligated to compose such works of music as His Highness may demand; further not to communicate [such] new compositions to anyone, still less allow them to be copied [for others], but to reserve them entirely and exclusively for His Highness; most of all to compose nothing for any other person without prior knowledge and gracious consent.Despite the immense labour and considerable tribulation this position entailed, Haydn must have known that it was the opportunity of a lifetime. One can well understand the joy and satisfaction conveyed by Griesinger’s remark: ‘It was still granted to Haydn’s father [d 1763] to see his son in the blue and gold uniform of the court, and to hear the prince’s many praises of his son’s talent’.

Paul Anton, already in uncertain health in 1761, declined rapidly in early 1762 and died on 18 March. Childless, he was succeeded by his brother Nicolaus, an even more enthusiastic musician, who harboured even grander designs for the physical and artistic development of the court. Goethe coined the phrase ‘das Esterházysche Feenreich’ to describe his display at the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt in 1764, which has passed into the literature; in his own day he was called ‘der Prachtliebende’ (‘the Magnificent’). His treatment of Haydn was generous: he raised his salary to 600 gulden, regularly dispensed gold ducats as thanks for the submission of baryton trios and after successful opera productions and, following fires that destroyed Haydn’s house in Eisenstadt in 1768 and 1776, paid to have it rebuilt. As a matter of course his musical taste decisively influenced what genres Haydn cultivated at court; whether it affected Haydn’s style as well cannot be determined (except in cases like the works for baryton).

The musical ensemble was at first very small, normally comprising 13 to 15 players (of whom many performed on more than one instrument): strings (approximately 6 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass), 2 oboes, 2 horns and a bassoon (plus a flute in certain works or movements). Haydn led from the violin; no keyboard continuo was employed except in the theatre. Beginning in the 1770s, the ensemble was gradually enlarged, owing primarily to the increasing importance of the court opera; at its height in the 1780s it counted 22–4 members. Especially at first, it was manned largely by virtuosos (including Luigi Tomasini, violin, Joseph Weigl and later Anton Kraft, cello, Carl Franz, horn and baryton), some of whom remained at the court for decades. This situation is reflected in many difficult and exposed passages in Haydn’s symphonies, as well as numerous concertos from the 1760s. Indeed symphonies nos.6–8, Le matin, Le midi and Le soir (1761) – among his first compositions in his new position; Dies states that the ‘times of day’ topic was suggested by the prince – were expressly calculated to show off the new ensemble, both as a whole and in terms of the individual players, all of whom receive solos. But Haydn was also demonstrating his own prowess: although the topics were traditional, the works have no precedent, either generally or in his own output.

During the first half of the 1760s Haydn composed chiefly instrumental music, as far as we know exclusively for performance at court. His most productive genre was the symphony, with about 25 works; in addition to nos.6–8 they include nos.22 (‘The Philosopher’) and 30 and 31 (‘Alleluja’, ‘Hornsignal’). The concertos include two or three for violin, the Cello Concerto in C, a concerto for violone (the first ever composed, as far as is known), two horn concertos and one for two horns, one for flute and perhaps one for bassoon; many of them are lost. Only a few keyboard works are known, primarily trios and quartet divertimentos; there are also a few ensemble divertimentos as well as minuets and other dances. In addition, there were a few large-scale vocal works, usually intended as celebrations of particular occasions: the festa teatrale Acide (1762, first performed in January 1763, for the marriage of Anton, the prince’s eldest son) and the somewhat mysterious commedia Marchese (La marchesa Nespola, 1762–3; only fragments survive, and three similar works are lost), as well as several cantatas honouring Nicolaus himself, whether on his nameday (Destatevi o miei fidi, 1763; Qual dubbio ormai, 1764), his return from distant journeys (Da qual gioia improvvisa, 1764, from Frankfurt; Al tuo arrivo felice, 1767, from Paris) or his convalescence from illness (Dei clementi, undated). The only sacred vocal work of consequence is the first of Haydn’s two Te Deum settings (hXXIIIc:1).

We know little of Haydn’s daily routine or that of the musical establishment during these years, or of noteworthy events in his life. His contract required him to appear every morning and afternoon to see if music was desired, although a later document specified that academies were to be given regularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. From 1762 to 1765 Nicolaus lived primarily in Eisenstadt, with frequent shorter stays at other properties. Haydn and his wife lived in an apartment in the same building as the other musicians, next to the ‘Bergkirche’, just up the hill from the castle. He was seriously ill in the winter of 1764–5; the following year his brother Johann was engaged, nominally as a tenor but de facto charitably supported by Haydn.

(ii) Kapellmeister, 1766–90.

In late 1765 and early 1766 Haydn’s status and activities at the Esterházy court changed radically. First came a series of crises in his relations with the prince. In September 1765 the flautist Franz Sigl accidentally burnt down a house; the chief court administrator, Ludwig Peter Rahier (with whom Haydn often clashed), recommended that Sigl be imprisoned, and Haydn was reprimanded by the prince. Haydn however eloquently defended himself and succeeded in having Sigl’s punishment reduced to simple dismissal (indeed he was later rehired). In October, Werner, having just signed his last will, wrote a vituperative letter to the prince in which he accused Haydn of neglecting the instruments and musical archives and the supervision of the singers. In late November or early December Nicolaus again sent Haydn a reprimand (perhaps drafted by Rahier), instructing him to see to these matters and to prepare a catalogue of the archives and instruments of the Chor-Musique. At the end stood the following postscript: ‘Kapellmeister Haydn is urgently enjoined to apply himself to composition more zealously than heretofore, and especially to compose more pieces that one can play on the [baryton]’. The baryton was a member of the viol family, on which the performer could ‘accompany himself’ by plucking a series of sympathetically vibrating strings while also playing normally with the bow; the prince was an accomplished performer. Haydn, though doubtless angry and dismayed, at once began to compose baryton trios in quantity. On 4 January 1766 he submitted three new ones (Nicolaus pronounced himself satisfied and awarded him 12 ducats, while immediately ordering six more), and completed a ‘book’ of 24 (they were elegantly bound in sets) that autumn; two additional books followed by July 1768. Thereafter production dropped off somewhat, though remaining steady into the mid-1770s, for a total of 126 trios plus sundry other works.

A different kind of response (so it is assumed) was Haydn’s decision to begin a thematic catalogue of his own compositions, and thereby to refute the prince’s charge of non-productivity. This document, misleadingly called the Entwurf-Katalog (‘draft catalogue’, fig.3 [not available online]), is of capital importance for our knowledge of Haydn’s output from the pre-Esterházy days up to the late 1770s, as well as its chronology. It was laid out in about 1765–6 by Joseph Elssler, the most important music copyist at the court, doubtless according to Haydn’s plan; Haydn made additional entries more or less regularly until the late 1770s.

On 3 March 1766 Werner died; Haydn was now Kapellmeister, responsible for the church music as well as everything else. It was presumably this higher status (his salary did not change) that induced him in May to purchase a house in Eisenstadt (now a Haydn museum). A more important change was signalled later that year: a portion of the court, including Haydn and some musicians, spent the summer at Nicolaus’s splendid new castle, Eszterháza, then beginning to rise in reclaimed swampland east of Lake Neusiedl (present-day Hungary). Over time, the prince became increasingly attached to it, and ‘summer’ eventually expanded to ten months. Such an extension occasioned the ‘Farewell’ Symphony (no.45, autumn 1772), in which the pantomime of the departing musicians brought home to the prince the need to return to Eisenstadt.

As a result of these new circumstances, Haydn’s compositional activity changed substantially. In addition to the upsurge in baryton music, in 1766 he began to compose large-scale vocal works, both sacred and secular. In the former domain he at once produced two works on the largest scale, with an astonishing assurance of style and technique for someone who had composed no church music for a decade. The first was the Missa Cellensis in honorem BVM of 1766 (possibly completed later), apparently intended for Mariazell (where earlier Esterházys had erected a chapel) or a Viennese church associated with that shrine. More masses followed: in 1768 the Missa ‘Sunt bona mixta malis’, about 1768–9 the Missa in honorem BVM (‘Great Organ Mass’; Haydn presumably performed the obbligato organ part), in 1772 the Missa Sancti Nicolai (the title implies a celebration of the prince’s nameday, 6 December) and about 1775–8 a missa brevis (‘Little Organ Mass’). His other ‘inaugural’ liturgical masterpiece was the Stabat mater of 1767. Its original purpose is unknown; Haydn was confident enough to send it to Hasse, earning a letter of praise that he much valued, and he performed it in Vienna in March 1768. There followed a Salve regina (hXXIIIb:2; 1771) for four solo voices, string orchestra and obbligato organ (again performed by Haydn). It was presumably this work, not (as he later claimed) the Stabat mater, that resulted from his vow to compose a work of thanksgiving to the Virgin if he were cured of a serious illness; he suffered from a ‘raging fever’ (Griesinger) about 1770–71, so threatening that his brother applied for leave from Salzburg to visit him. The celebratory cantata Applausus (1768) was commissioned in honour of the abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Zwettl; because Haydn was unable to be present, he accompanied the work with a long and informative letter on performing practice. Haydn composed the Italian oratorio Il ritorno di Tobia (1774–5) for the annual Lenten concert of the Tonkünstler-Societät in Vienna, a charitable organization for musicians’ widows and children founded by Hofkapellmeister Gassmann in 1771. He conducted the premières on 2 and 4 April 1775; most of the roles were sung by members of his own Kapelle. The work was a notable success; a review praised the choruses in particular and referred to his growing international reputation.

Beginning in 1766, the prince began to require operatic productions at the new castle; eventually opera would become the focus of the entire musical establishment (see §(iii) below). For the time being, however, Haydn’s primary task was to compose operas to be produced during the festivities celebrating visits by high personages. Three comic operas date from the late 1760s: La canterina (1766) apparently had its première in the summer during a visit of the imperial court to Eisenstadt (in a makeshift theatre) and was afterwards produced in Pressburg (Bratislava). Lo speziale (1768) and Le pescatrici (1769–70) are both based on librettos by Goldoni; the former inaugurated the new opera house at Eszterháza probably during the last week of September 1768, on the visit of the Hungarian regent, Duke Albert of Saxe-Techsen, while the latter had its première on 16 September 1770 during the wedding celebrations of Countess Lamberg, the prince’s niece. After a pause, operatic composition resumed in 1773 with L’infedeltà delusa, given on 26 July (the nameday of the dowager Princess Maria Anna, Paul Anton’s widow), and Philemon und Baucis, a German marionette opera, given on 2 September during the festivities in honour of a ‘state’ visit by Empress Maria Theresa to Eszterháza. (Hexenschabbas, another marionette opera from about this time, is lost.) L’infedeltà delusa was also given for the empress; the performance occasioned her famous remark (if it is genuine) that in order to see a good opera she had to go to the country. Haydn’s last opera during this phase was L’incontro improvviso, first given on 29 August 1775, during a visit by Archduke Ferdinand and his court.

During the late 1760s and early 1770s Haydn continued to compose instrumental works, albeit at a slower rate than before (except during the operatic hiatus of 1770–72). But they became longer, more passionate and more daring. The symphonies comprise nos.26, 35, 38, 41–9, 52, 58–9, 65; many of these are among his best-known before the London period, as is evident from their nicknames, which include ‘Lamentatione’, ‘Maria Theresa’, ‘La passione’, ‘Mourning’, ‘Farewell’ and ‘The Schoolmaster’. He also took up the string quartet, not cultivated since the 1750s, producing three increasingly imposing opera in rapid succession: op.9 (c1769–70), op.17 (1771) and op.20 (1772). The reason is unknown: there is no documentation of quartet performances at the Esterházy court, and it has been speculated that he composed them for Viennese patrons (Burney described the audience’s transports at a performance of Haydn quartets in Vienna in September 1772). He also composed numerous keyboard sonatas for connoisseurs: hXVI:45 (1766), 19 (1767), 46 (late 1760s), 20 (in C minor, 1771), as well as seven lost works and one that survives only as a fragment (hXVI:2a–g, XIV:5) which, to judge from the incipits, were on the same scale. A few concertos date from this period as well. Many of these works are so bold and expressive that in the 20th century they became subsumed under the appellation Sturm und Drang. The term has been criticized: taken from the title of a play of 1776 by Maximilian Klinger, it properly pertains to a literary movement of the middle and late 1770s rather than a musical one of about 1768–72, and early proponents of this interpretation assumed implausibly and without evidence that these works expressed a ‘romantic crisis’ in Haydn’s life. Nevertheless, his style during these years was distinctive; furthermore, similar traits are found in the contemporary music of many other Austrian composers, including the young Mozart’s G minor Symphony k183/173dB and D minor String Quartet k173.

In Haydn’s case this development may have been related to his turn to vocal music beginning in 1766: perhaps the demand for expressive depth in sacred works and dramatic effectiveness in opera, as well as the tendency towards through-composition in both genres, stimulated this expansion of his instrumental music. In 1769 Nicolaus began engaging a theatrical troupe each summer season; in the seasons 1772–7 it was the famous one directed by Carl Wahr, which played primarily comedies and other entertainments, although Shakespeare’s tragedies were also mounted. It has been speculated that Haydn supplied incidental music for these productions (including even Hamlet and King Lear) and that some Sturm und Drang symphonies recycle this music, although the only documented example is Symphony no.60 (‘Il distratto’, 1774), from a very un-Shakespearean French comedy. In any case, from about 1773 Haydn’s instrumental music became generally lighter in style – the reason (if any) is again unknown; there is no evidence of princely intervention – and was again addressed to amateurs as well as connoisseurs. The string quartet was abandoned. Both the symphonies of 1773–5 (nos.50–51, 54–7, 60, 64, 66–9) and two contemporaneous sets of keyboard sonatas, hXVI:21–6 (1773) and especially 27–32 (1774–6), exemplify this mixed orientation; the former was published in Vienna in 1774 (the first authorized publication of Haydn’s music) with a dedication to the prince, who presumably paid the costs. A third set (nos.35–9 and 20), again mixed in style, was published in 1780.

(iii) Opera impresario, 1776–90.

In 1778 Haydn sold his house in Eisenstadt; the court now stayed at Eszterháza at least ten months every year, and he increasingly spent the short winter season in Vienna (see §3(iv)). The very long stays at Eszterháza were linked to Nicolaus’s reorganization of the theatrical entertainment there in 1776. Now there was a regular ‘season’ each year, comprising opera, stage plays and marionette operas (in a separate small theatre); in principle there was theatrical entertainment every evening the prince was in residence. At first, stage plays predominated (184 evenings in 1778, as opposed to only 50 operas – and only two musical academies; four others took place during the day, in the ‘apartments’), but the number of opera evenings increased steadily, reaching a high of 124 or 125 in 1786. New productions were henceforth not grand, ‘occasional’ events, but a regular occurrence; in 1776 there were five, and in the banner year 1786 there were eight, together with nine revivals. Under these conditions Haydn could not compose more than a small fraction of what was needed, nor were new works commissioned from other composers. Instead, operas were acquired from Vienna, where there were many productions and a lively trade in copying; it is not known how many were selected by the prince or Haydn during their brief winter sojourns. Some were acquired by agents (e.g. Nunziato Porta, the librettist of Orlando paladino), others supplied by newly arrived singers etc., and still others purchased from archives and estates (Dittersdorf sold the court several of his own operas in 1776). The up-to-date repertory centred on opera buffa: the composer represented by the greatest number of productions from 1776 to 1790 was Cimarosa (13), followed in order by Anfossi, Paisiello, Sarti and Haydn (seven), and 24 other composers with fewer.

Once it was decided to produce a given opera, Haydn was responsible for any musical alterations that might be required, supervising the copying of parts, rehearsing the singers and orchestra, and conducting all the performances – for no fewer than 88 productions in the 15 years from 1776 to 1790. This was by any reckoning a full-time job, even if one does not count his own new stage works, of which six originated between 1777 and 1783, or almost one per year. First came a dramma giocoso by Goldoni, Il mondo della luna (given on 3 August 1777, on the marriage of Nicolaus’s younger son). La vera costanza (1778–9) is the subject of implausible and conflicting anecdotes in Griesinger and Dies, according to which it was originally commissioned for the Burgtheater in Vienna but scuttled by intrigue (neither Joseph II nor his musicians were well-disposed towards Haydn); in fact it had its première at Eszterháza, on 25 April 1779. It was lost in the fire that largely destroyed the Eszterháza opera theatre on 18 November 1779; the surviving version represents Haydn’s reconstruction of the work from 1785. It is a measure of the prince’s commitment (or obsession) that an opera was given just three days after the fire, in the marionette theatre, which had been hastily adapted for staged opera (yet another noble marriage was to be celebrated). Haydn’s L’isola disabitata to a libretto by Metastasio also had its première on schedule on 6 December (the prince’s nameday). Next came La fedeltà premiata (1780; given on 25 February 1781, on the inauguration of the rebuilt opera house). In 1783 Haydn took the unusual step of publishing the great scena for Celia in Act 2, ‘Ah, come il core … Ombra del caro bene’, in full score; it received a detailed and laudatory review by C.F. Cramer in his Magazin der Musik. Haydn’s last two Eszterháza operas were Orlando paladino (1782, for the prince’s nameday) and Armida (1783; given 26 February 1784). The later 1770s saw three German marionette operas, also all lost in the 1779 fire: Dido (1776), Vom abgebrannten Haus (date uncertain) and Die bestrafte Rachbegierde (1779; its production can be inferred only from the printed libretto); the occasionally seen Die Feuersbrunst is either spurious or represents an arrangement of Vom abgebrannten Haus.

After 1783 Haydn composed no more operas for the court. It is not known why he abandoned the genre, which he had cultivated intensively since 1766 and in which he was proud of his achievements (see §6 below), or how he persuaded the prince to consent at a time when the number of productions was still rising. Perhaps he was increasingly drawn to his new career as composer of instrumental music for publication (see §(iv) below). In any case all his other duties for the court theatre remained in force; in particular he still revised the operas in production to suit his provincial stage and limited personnel. Haydn made many cuts, both of entire numbers and within them, re-orchestrated (often adding winds), changed tempos (usually speeding them up) and ‘tailored’ arias to ‘fit’ his singers, as Mozart would have said. He composed about 20 substitute (‘insertion’) arias (hXXIVb) as well as long passages within numbers not rejected as a whole.

The majority of the insertion arias and simplifications were composed for Luigia Polzelli, a young Italian mezzo-soprano who joined the troupe in March 1779 along with her much older husband, a violinist. Both proved inadequate and were dismissed in December 1780 – but promptly rehired: Luigia and Haydn had become lovers, a relationship that, like so many in that milieu, was probably an open secret. (Haydn told Griesinger that the painter Ludwig Guttenbrunn had been his wife’s lover during his stay at the court in 1770–72.) While at Eszterháza Luigia gave birth to her second son, Antonio, in 1783. He and his mother believed that Haydn was the father (there is no evidence of such a belief on Haydn’s part); he became a professional musician and was appointed to the Esterházy orchestra in 1803. Haydn was well disposed towards him, and even more towards his elder brother Pietro (b 1777); he taught them both music and maintained contact with them throughout his life. As for Luigia, following the dissolution of the Kapelle in 1790 Haydn attempted to procure engagements for her in Italy; however, he would not have her with him in London, even though her sister was engaged there as a singer (see §4 below). Although there are no letters from the 1780s by which we might assess the nature of their feelings, he wrote to her often (in Italian) during his first London visit. Those up to early spring 1792 are ardent: ‘Perhaps I shall never regain the good humour that I used to have with you; you are always in my heart, and I shall never, never forget you … Think from time to time about your Haydn, who esteems you and loves you tenderly, and will always be faithful to you’ (14 January). But those from May and June are notably cooler – he had entered a new relationship – and none survives from his second London visit. He acceded to Polzelli’s requests for money, but not always immediately or in the demanded amount, while complaining (misleadingly) how little he had, as well as (accurately) how hard he had to work.

The vastly increased operatic and theatrical activity at the Esterházy court from 1776 on led to an equally drastic reduction in the performance of instrumental music. As noted above, only six ‘academies’ were listed for the entire year 1778 (all in January and February). Presumably the prince simply lost interest; even Haydn’s stream of baryton works began to dry up after 1773 and ceased entirely about 1775, following the octets hX:1–6. The symphony, from the late 1750s to 1775 the one constant in Haydn’s output, declined as well; only nine were completed in the six years 1776–81 (nos.53, 61–3, 70–71, 73–5), none at all in 1777 or the first half of 1778. Even these few symphonies often include adaptations of stage music. No.63 in C begins with the overture to Il mondo della luna, and the slow movement (‘La Roxelane’) is based on a theme from a stage play; the slow movement of no.73, ‘La chasse’, uses his own lied Gegenliebe and the finale recycles the overture to La fedeltà premiata. He even recycled the overture hIa:7 twice, in the finale of one version of no.53 (‘Imperial’) and the opening movement of no.62. From this time on, the Esterházy court was no longer the primary destination for Haydn’s instrumental music.

(iv) Independence, 1779–90.

Nevertheless, Haydn was able to continue his career as an instrumental composer. In contrast to London, Paris and elsewhere, where unauthorized editions of his music had been appearing steadily since 1764, there was no music publishing industry to speak of in the Habsburg realm; most music circulated in manuscript copies. This situation changed in 1778, when Artaria & Co., hitherto primarily art dealers and mapmakers, expanded into music printing; other firms soon followed. Artaria and Haydn must have made contact in 1779 (it is not known who took the initiative); their first publication was a set of six keyboard sonatas, hXVI:35–9, 20 (delivered in winter 1779–80, published in April 1780), dedicated to the virtuoso sisters Katharina and Marianna von Auenbrugger. Dozens of Viennese publications of Haydn’s music followed over the next decade. This would not have been possible on the terms of his 1761 contract, which forbade him from selling music on his own or composing for anyone else without permission. However, he signed a new contract on New Year’s Day 1779, in which these prohibitions were omitted; the conjunction with Artaria’s founding in 1778 and Haydn’s publication of music with them beginning in 1779–80 cannot be coincidental. The prince was losing interest in instrumental music; Haydn must have persuaded him to strike a compromise, whereby he remained in residence at court, continued in charge of the opera and drew his full salary, but was granted compositional independence in other respects, including the income from sales of his music. In addition, he began to market his music in other countries: in England beginning in 1781 with Forster, to whom he sold more music than to anyone except Artaria; in France beginning in 1783, selling Symphonies nos.76–8 (composed 1782) to Boyer and offering nos.79–81 (1783–4) to Naderman. (To be sure, certain works not composed for the court – for example, the ‘Paris’ Symphonies – were still performed, or at any rate tried out, there before being sent into the world, and others, such as the piano sonatas hXVI:40–42, were dedicated to members of the princely family.)

Haydn soon learnt to maximize his income by selling a given work in several countries, accepting a separate fee for each. Except in Vienna and London he often worked through a middleman. These activities were in many respects unregulated (modern copyright law being in its infancy); unauthorized ‘double copying’ was a constant danger, and everyone attempted to maximize his advantage – including Haydn, whose tactics were often unscrupulous, to say the least. He often earned his ‘little extra’ by selling manuscript copies of new works to private individuals; such ‘subscription’ copies still carried a certain prestige. An example is offered by his famous letters offering the string quartets op.33, composed in summer and autumn 1781 and sold to Artaria by prior arrangement. On 3 December he wrote to between ten and 20 noble and well-to-do music lovers, including the Swiss intellectual Johann Caspar Lavater:I love and happily read your works … Since I know that in Zürich and Winterthur there are many gentlemen amateurs and great connoisseurs and patrons of music, I cannot conceal from you the fact that I am issuing a work consisting of 6 Quartets for two violins, viola and violoncello concertante, by subscription for the price of six ducats; they are of a new and entirely special kind, for I haven’t written any for ten years … Subscribers who live abroad will receive them before I issue the works here …

However, Artaria (who presumably knew nothing of these activities) announced the forthcoming publication of the quartets on 29 December at a price of 4 gulden (6 ducats equalled approximately 25 gulden). Haydn was furious:It was with astonishment that I read … that you intend to publish my quartets in four weeks … Such a proceeding places me in a most dishonourable position and is very damaging; it is a most extortionate step on your part … Mr Hummel [the publisher] also wanted to be a subscriber, but I did not want to behave so shabbily, and I did not send them to Berlin solely out of regard for our friendship and further transactions; by God! you owe me more than 50 ducats, since I have not yet satisfied many of the subscribers, and cannot possibly send copies to those living abroad; this step must cause the cessation of further transactions between us.In fact, it did not come to a rupture: Artaria delayed publication until April, and Haydn apparently sold the quartets to Hummel after all; both parties now better understood the ground rules (‘the next time’, wrote Haydn later, ‘we shall both be more prudent’). A loss of 50 ducats implies about eight unsold copies; in 1784 Haydn claimed to Artaria that he had ‘always received more than 100 ducats through subscriptions to my quartets’. Even as his publications increased, Haydn continued to market manuscript copies, especially in genres that were not ordinarily published (such as sacred vocal music), and to sell all sorts of music in places where there was still no music publishing industry, notably Spain. These were hardly ever new works. To be sure, he wrote to Artaria in 1784: ‘The quartets I’m working on just now … are very small and with only three movements; they are destined for Spain’, but no trace of such works survives, unless it be the small-scale (but four-movement) single quartet op.42 (1785), which, however, appears to have been composed for a periodical series published by Hoffmeister.

Another risk arose from the circumstance that many publishers sold works from their own catalogues to business partners in other markets. Forster naturally assumed he had exclusive rights in England to the works Haydn had sold him. However, when Artaria sold some of the same works to Longman & Broderip, two ostensibly authorized editions were suddenly in direct competition. To make matters worse, among the works Haydn sold Forster was a set of piano trios hXV:3–5, the first two of which were almost certainly compositions of his former pupil Pleyel. Later, Pleyel sold them to Longman & Broderip; when the latter edition appeared, Forster embarked on a lawsuit with Longman, in which Haydn became entangled when he went to England; it was settled out of court. Despite such difficulties, his methods of exploiting multiple markets became a model for the next two generations of composers; he ‘taught’ it to Beethoven (who learnt his lesson well, including the unscrupulous aspects), and it was still used by Mendelssohn and Chopin. He was also adept at ‘marketing’. He described Symphonies nos.76–8 as ‘beautiful, impressive and above all not very long symphonies … and in particular everything very easy’, and his first authorized Viennese publication of orchestral music (late 1782) was devoted, not to symphonies, but to the ‘easier’ genre of the overture.

For all these reasons Haydn’s compositional activity underwent a radical change in the 1780s. His music, which been well known and much praised since the mid-1760s, was now genuinely popular: he could scarcely keep up with the demand. He concentrated on what was salable: instrumental works that would appeal to both amateurs and connoisseurs, opera excerpts and lieder. As long as his works had been destined for the court or published without his participation, he had had little need to follow the ‘opus’ principle; now he adopted it for almost all his publications. Even the string quartet was subject to another pause of six years (and the example of Mozart’s quartets dedicated to him) before he composed three sets in rapid succession during 1787–90: op.50 (Artaria; dedicated to the King of Prussia), op.54/55 (a single set of six, sold to Johann Tost, formerly a violinist at court, who resold them to various publishers) and op.64. The English publisher John Bland visited him at Eszterháza in November 1789, when Haydn promised him a new quartet in return for a new razor (Haydn thanked him for the razors in April 1790). However, a ‘new’ quartet could not have been the one now known as the ‘Razor’ (op.55 no.2, composed in 1788 and never published by Bland); it is more likely that the story has to do with op.64 (1790), which Bland did publish in an authorized edition.

A genre that Haydn had not cultivated since the mid-1760s but which now again became important was the piano trio, with 13 works in the 1780s. hXV:5 (1784) and 9–10 (1785) were sold to Forster; nos.6–8 (1784–5) and 11–13 (1788–9) to Artaria, as was no.14 (1789–90). Nos.15–17 (1790) were composed for Bland; they specify a flute rather than a violin as the melody instrument (no.17: flute or violin). The piano sonatas nos.33, 34 and 43 were assembled post facto and published in 1783; by contrast, nos.40–42 are an ‘opus’ (published 1784; dedicated to Marie Hermenegild, wife of the later Prince Nicolaus II). Two important single sonatas date from 1789–90: hXVI:48 in C, composed for Breitkopf in Leipzig, and hXVI:49 in E, for Maria Anna von Genzinger; the Capriccio hXVII:4, composed ‘in a launige hour’ in 1789, is equally fine. Another genre made newly popular through publication was the lied; Haydn composed 24 in 1781–4 (hXXVIa:1–24) and published them with Artaria in two sets of 12.

Even in the early 1780s Haydn was no mere ‘entertainer’. But a newly serious orientation was instigated by his receipt in about 1784–5 of two prestigious commissions from abroad, both executed in 1785–6. Six symphonies were commissioned by Count d’Ogny for performance in Paris by the Concert de la Loge Olympique (a masonic organization); the fee was later reported to have been 25 louis d’or for each symphony (Mozart had been paid only 5 for the Paris Symphony k297/300a) and Haydn received also 5 louis d’or from Imbault for the publication rights. The Concert employed a much larger orchestra than any for which he had composed symphonies; whether for this reason or simply owing to the notion of ‘Paris’, they are the grandest he had yet written. They were immensely popular; Marie Antoinette supposedly preferred no.85 in B, whence its nickname ‘La reine’; compare ‘L’ours’ (no.82) and ‘La poule’ (no.83). Their success led to additional symphonies: Haydn sold nos.88–9 (1787) to Tost, who resold them in Paris and elsewhere, and d’Ogny commissioned nos.90–92 (1788–9).

The other commission was a highly unusual one from Cádiz, for a series of orchestral pieces on the last words of Christ, to be performed in a darkened church as a kind of Passion during Holy Week, presumably on Good Friday. Haydn described them to Forster aspurely instrumental music divided into seven Sonatas, each Sonata lasting seven or eight minutes, together with an opening Introduction and concluding with a Terremoto or Earthquake. These Sonatas are composed on, and appropriate to, the Words that Christ our Saviour spoke on the Cross. …
Each Sonata, or rather each setting of the text, is expressed only by instrumental music, but in such a way that it creates the most profound impression on even the most inexperienced listener.Griesinger commented: ‘Haydn often stated that this work was one of his most successful’. It was widely performed and favourably received, not least owing to its avoidance of what were taken to be the chief dangers of tone-painting, excessive literalness and triviality. Haydn also sold the Seven Last Words in arrangements, one for string quartet and one for keyboard.

A distinctly lighter series of commissions came from King Ferdinando IV of Naples. Like Prince Esterházy, he had become proficient on an out-of-the-way instrument: the lira organizzata, a sort of grown-up hurdy-gurdy. He commissioned concertos and ‘notturnos’ for two lire organizzate from various composers; Haydn supplied five or six concertos (hVIIh, 1786–7) and eight notturnos (hII:25–32, 1789–90).

Haydn’s stays in Vienna were still restricted to one or two months each winter and occasional brief visits during Lent. He increasingly valued the imperial capital’s artistic and intellectual life, which was flourishing under Joseph II, and chafed at having to spend so much time in the ‘wasteland’ (Einöde) of Eszterháza. He acquired many friends and patrons, including Baron Gottfried van Swieten (whom he had met in 1775), Councillor Franz Sales von Greiner (1730–98; father of the later Caroline Pichler), who presided over Vienna’s leading literary salon and supplied Haydn with lieder texts, Anton Liebe von Kreutzner, who in 1781–2 commissioned the Mariazellermesse and to whose daughter Haydn dedicated his lieder published in 1781, Councillor Franz Bernhard von Keess, who held regular concerts of orchestral music and made the first systematic attempt to collect all of Haydn’s symphonies, and Michael Puchberg (Mozart’s patron). Their orientation, reflecting that of the emperor, was enlightened-conservative: they were interested in literature, philosophy and education and largely rejected dogmatism, yet retained a traditional and Catholic outlook – all traits that Haydn shared. The majority were freemasons; Nicolaus himself was Master of Ceremonies at one Viennese lodge, and it was most probably he or others in this circle who induced Haydn to apply for membership in the order. Haydn did so on 29 December 1784 and was inducted into the lodge ‘Zur wahren Eintracht’ on 11 February 1785; however, there are no further records of his participation, and (despite one further letter) it appears that freemasonry was of no particular significance to him.

Haydn’s visits to Vienna offered many opportunities for performances of his music. The string quartets op.33 are still sometimes called the ‘Russian’ quartets, owing to a dedication on a late edition that reflects a performance given on Christmas Day 1781 for Grand Duke Paul of Russia (later Tsar Paul I) and his music-loving consort. Regarding his lieder, Haydn told Artaria: ‘I will sing them myself, in the best houses. A master must see to his rights by his presence and by correct performance’. In February 1779 the Tonkünstler-Societät had invited Haydn to join, but attached conditions not to his liking; he gruffly refused. In March 1784, however, he produced Il ritorno di Tobia for them in a revised version. The ‘tightness’ of the Viennese performing scene is evident from the fact that among the five soloists were four who had taken part (or would do so) in Mozart opera premières:

 Anna: Nancy Storace (Figaro, Susanna)

 Raffaelle: Catarina Cavalieri (Entführung, Konstanze)

 Tobia: Valentin Adamberger (Entführung, Belmonte)

 Tobit: Stefano Mandini (Figaro, Count Almaviva)

Haydn and Storace became warm friends; he later composed a cantata ‘for the voice of my dear Storace’ (possibly Miseri noi, hXXIVa:7). In January 1787 three of the ‘Paris’ symphonies were performed, and in March the Seven Last Words at the Palais Auersperg; both were unpublished novelties at the time.

The friendship between Haydn and Mozart also developed in Vienna. It is believed that they first met in 1783–4, at a performance such as that of Tobia just described, one of Mozart’s ‘academies’, or at a quartet party: Michael Kelly’s (late and perhaps untrustworthy) reminiscence of Stephen Storace’s quartet comprising Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart and Vanhal is set in 1784 (Kelly later visited Haydn at the Esterházy court). Mozart performed his six new quartets for ‘my dear friend Haydn and other good friends’ on 15 January 1785, and the last three again on 12 February; the latter occasioned Haydn’s famous remark to Leopold Mozart that Wolfgang was the greatest composer he knew, ‘either by name or reputation’. And Mozart’s dedicatory letter in Artaria’s edition of the quartets (September 1785) is headed: ‘To my dear friend Haydn’. In the winter of 1789–90 he invited Haydn to rehearsals of Così fan tutte, and Haydn organized a quartet party in which Mozart’s participation can be inferred.

The nature of their relationship has been much discussed. Many writers have romanticized it, beginning with Griesinger’s and Dies’s sentimental accounts of their tearful farewell in December 1790 on Haydn’s departure for London (including Haydn’s alleged comment, ‘My language is understood in the entire world’). Others are sceptical, noting that the surviving documentation derives solely from two winters, 1784–5 and 1789–90, and that Mozart’s dedicatory letter may protest his friendship a little too much. But there is no doubt of their mutual admiration as composers: each acknowledged the other as his only peer and as the only meaningful influence on his own music in the 1780s. Mozart’s dedication of quartets to Haydn – a mere composer rather than a rich or noble patron – was unusual (although cynics note that he might have attempted to recruit the latter, but failed), and Griesinger relates an anecdote according to which he defended Haydn against a stupid criticism by Kozeluch: ‘neither you nor I would have hit on that idea’. But Haydn’s expressions of admiration went further. In a famous (albeit unauthenticated) letter of 1787 to the impresario Franz Rott in Prague, he admitted that he feared comparison with ‘the great Mozart’, at least on the stage:If only I could impress Mozart’s inimitable works on the soul of every friend of music, and the souls of high personages in particular, as deeply, with the same musical understanding and with the same deep feeling, as I understand and feel them, the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel.In early 1792 he wrote to Puchberg: ‘I was quite beside myself for some time over [Mozart’s] death and could not believe that Providence would transport so irreplaceable a man to the other world’, adding that he had offered to teach Mozart’s son Karl without fee (something he did not do lightly). ‘I have often been flattered by my friends with having some genius’, he said in Burney’s hearing, ‘but he was much my superior’. It is remarkable that his feelings were apparently marked neither by jealousy nor a compromise of his musical self-confidence, except possibly regarding opera; they had no effect on his productivity.

In any case it was a friend of a different sort whom Haydn most cherished around 1790: Maria Anna von Genzinger (1750–93), the wife of an important physician (whose clients included Nicolaus Esterházy) and a talented amateur pianist. In June 1789 she sent Haydn her piano arrangement of the slow movement of an unidentified composition; he responded with praise, and the relationship rapidly became intense, although as far as can be told it remained platonic. Haydn’s letters to Mme Genzinger are his most fervent and intimate; that of 9 February 1790, following his sudden return from Vienna to Eszterháza, is at once poignant and amusing:Here I sit in my wilderness – forsaken – like a poor waif – almost without human society – sad – full of the memories of past glorious days – yes! past, alas! – and who knows if those days will return again? Those wonderful parties? – where the whole circle is one heart, one soul – all the beautiful musical evenings? … For three days I didn’t know if I was Kapellmeister or Kapell-servant. Nothing could console me, my whole house was in confusion, my pianoforte, which I usually love, was perverse and disobedient … I could sleep only a little, even my dreams persecuted me; and then, just when I was happily dreaming that I was listening to Le nozze di Figaro, the horrible North wind woke me and almost blew my nightcap off my head … Alas! alas! I thought to myself as I was eating here, instead of that delicious slice of beef, a chunk of a 50-year-old cow … Here in Eszterháza no one asks me: ‘Would you like some chocolate, with milk or without? … What may I offer you, my dear Haydn, would you like a vanilla or a strawberry ice?’But, as always, he soon recovered; the letter continues: ‘I am gradually getting used to country life, and yesterday I composed [studierte] for the first time, and indeed quite Haydnish’. Later that year he completed a sonata (hXVI:49) for Mme Genzinger, in the course of which he also advised her on the purchase of a new fortepiano; earlier he had advised her daughter Josepha about her performances of his cantata Arianna a Naxos (hXXVIb:2), perhaps composed in 1789 for the Venetian singer Bianca Sacchetti.

But the year 1790 was to prove even more disruptive than Haydn could have suspected in early February. Joseph II died on 20 February, throwing Vienna into mourning; five days later, Nicolaus Esterházy’s wife died (Haydn had his hands full keeping him from succumbing to depression), followed on 28 September by the prince himself. Anton, his son and successor, immediately dissolved the musical and theatrical establishment, although Haydn was kept on at a reduced salary without official duties; he also received 1000 gulden a year from Nicolaus’s estate. He at once moved to Vienna, taking rooms with a friend, J.N. Hamberger. He declined an offer to become Kapellmeister for Prince Grassalkovics (Nicolaus’s son-in-law, resident in Pressburg), and made it clear to King Ferdinando that he would not fulfil any vague promises he might have made to travel to Naples. Whatever his intentions were, they were soon overtaken by events.