Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)

Haydn affectionately known as ‘Papa’ to his contemporaries – encouraged Mozart, taught Beethoven, and in his own compositions fathered the modern symphony and the string quartet.

The Austrian composer Dittersdorf and Haydn were friends as young men. One night while roaming the streets they stopped outside a common beer hall in which the musicians, half drunk and half asleep, were fiddling away miserably at a Haydn minuet…. ‘Let’s go in,’ proposed Haydn. ‘In we go!’ agreed Dittersdorf.
Entering the taproom, Haydn sat down beside the leader and asked casually, ‘Whose minuet?’ The man snapped, ‘Haydn’s.’ Haydn moved in front of him and, feigning anger, declared: ‘That’s a stinking minuet!’ ‘Says who?’ demanded the fiddler, jumping out of his seat with rage. The other musicians rallied round him and were poised to smash their instruments over Haydn’s head but Dittersdorf, a big fellow, shielded Haydn with his arm and pushed him out of the door.

In 1759 Haydn gained his first appointment as music director to Count Morzin in Vienna. He liked to tell in later years how, while he was sitting one day at the harpsichord, the beautiful Countess Morzin leaned over him to see the notes and her neckerchief came
undone. ‘It was the first time I had seen such a sight; I became confused, my playing faltered, my fingers stuck to the keys. “What is it, Haydn? What are you doing?” cried the Countess. Very respectfully, I answered, “But your Grace, who would not be undone at such a sight?”

In Prince Esterhazy’s orchestra there were a number of vigorous young men who in summer, when the Prince stayed at Esterhaza, had to leave their wives behind in Eisenstadt. The Prince once prolonged his stay in Esterháza uncustomarily by some weeks: thoroughly dismayed, the loving husbands turned to Haydn for help. Haydn had the inspiration of writing a symphony… in which one instrument after the other falls silent. Each of the musicians was directed, as soon as his part was finished, to blow out his candle, put his instrument under his arm and walk out. The Prince and his audience immediately took the point. . . next day came the order to leave Esterháza.

Thus Haydn told Georg August Griesinger (1769-1845), his biographer, the origin of the ‘Farewell’ Symphony.

Many years afterwards when Haydn was in England, he perceived that the English, who were very fond of his instrumental compositions when the movement was lively and allegro, generally fell asleep during the andantes or adagios, in spite of all the beauties he could accumulate. He therefore wrote an andante, full of sweetness, and of the most tranquil movements; all the instruments seemed gradually to die away; but, in the middle of the softest pianissimo, striking up all at once, and reinforced by a stroke on the kettledrum, they made the slumbering audience start.†
†This work became known as the ‘Surprise’ Symphony.