Joseph Haydn

@Musicians, Timeline and Facts

Joseph Haydn was an 18th century Austrian composer of the Classical period

Mar 31, 1732

AustrianMusiciansComposersAries Celebrities
Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: March 31, 1732
  • Died on: May 31, 1809
  • Nationality: Austrian
  • Famous: Musicians, Composers
  • Spouses: Maria Anna Keller
  • Siblings: Johann Evangelist Haydn, Michael Haydn
  • Childrens: Alois Anton Nikolaus Polzelli

Joseph Haydn born at

Rohrau, Austria

Unsplash
Birth Place

Joseph Haydn’s personal life was a complicated one. He married Maria Anna Keller in 1760. His marriage proved to be an unhappy one, and both the spouses took on lovers. He had no children from this marriage.

Unsplash
Personal Life

He had a long term affair with Luigia Polzelli, a young Italian mezzo-soprano in the prince’s service.

Unsplash
Personal Life

As a successful and respected composer, he had become quite wealthy by his later years. He was well cared for by his servants during the last years of his life and died peacefully on 31 May 1809, aged 77.

Unsplash
Personal Life

Franz Joseph Haydn was born on 31 March 1732 in Rohrau, Austria to Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright, and his wife, Maria who used to work as a cook before marriage. Both of his parents, especially his father loved music and Mathias was also a folk musician who had taught himself to play the harp.

Unsplash
Childhood & Early Life

He started displaying his musical gifts from an early age and his parents sent him to live with their relative, Johann Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, who promised that he would train Joseph in music.

Unsplash
Childhood & Early Life

As a young child, he learned to play various musical instruments and received a good basic training. His talents got him noticed by Georg von Reutter, the musical director of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and he invited Joseph to serve as a chorister in Vienna’s most important church.

Unsplash
Childhood & Early Life

He moved to Vienna in 1740 and stayed at the choir school for nine years during which he acquired a lot of practical knowledge through performing but had little training in musical theory.

Unsplash
Childhood & Early Life

Over the years he physically matured and by 1749 his voice broke and he was no longer able to sing high choral parts. He was then expelled from the cathedral choir and the choir school.

Unsplash
Childhood & Early Life

Jobless all of a sudden, he struggled to establish himself in a career. Over the next few years he worked at a variety of jobs including that of a music teacher and a street serenader.

Unsplash
Musical Career

Since he did not receive any systematic training in musical theory while at the choir school, he embarked on a journey of self-education by studying the works of prominent composers and by practicing the exercises given in manuals of musical theory.

Unsplash
Musical Career

In 1752, he caught the attention of the Italian composer and singing teacher Nicola Porpora, who accepted him as valet–accompanist. It was there that he learned the true fundamentals of composition.

Unsplash
Musical Career

His skills developed over time and soon he started writing music along with playing instruments. One of his first compositions, the opera, ‘Der krumme Teufel’ ("The Limping Devil") was first premiered in 1753 with great success.

Unsplash
Musical Career

He gained much in stature over the next few years and was appointed as a musical director and chamber composer for the Bohemian count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin, in 1758. In this position he was made in charge of an orchestra of about 16 musicians.

Unsplash
Musical Career

Joseph Haydn was a prolific composer with 104 Symphonies, 32 Piano Trios, 62 Piano Sonatas, and more than 90 String Quartets to his name. One of his most popular String Quartet is the ‘Emperor Quartet’ Op.76 No.3 which uses the theme from the anthem ‘God Save Emperor Francis’. It later became the melody for the Austrian national anthem and then the German national anthem.

Unsplash
Major Works