Franz Josef Haydn 🎼🎹🇬🇧

Celebration of the 291st anniversary of Haydn’s birth in 1734

Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer of the classical period who was born in Rohrau on 31/3/1734 and celebrates his 289 years this year. Haydn is portrayed here by the painter Thomas Hardy at the climax of his career, during his visit to London in 1791, when the composer was 59 years old. His contributions to the musical form earned him the epithets of “Father of Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet”. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

For a long period of his creative life, Hadyn worked in various roles for the princely Esterhazy family, which was based in the interior of Hungary, therefore far from the main musical and cultural centres of the time, mainly Vienna. On the one hand, this allowed the composer to develop his own musical style, but it was also a restriction on the potential of his music becoming known throughout Europe. This only happened after 1790, when Hadyn was free to travel to the major musical capitals of the time, especially London. It was here that Haydn became a popular figure in the concert scene and was able to debut many of his compositions, symphonies and string quartets.

When Haydn returned to Vienna in 1795, the Esterházy family proposed that he serve again as music director. Haydn took office part-time. He spent his summers with the Esterházys in Eisenstadt and, over several years, wrote six masses for them. At that time, the musician also had a large house in Vienna, where he spent his last years weakened by a long illness that prevented him from continuing to compose.

The YouTube video below features one of Haydn’s most popular compositions, Te deum, sung by The Priests in its original Latin version.