Haydn at the Esterházy Court

Abstract

Among the prominent musical geniuses of the Enlightenment, Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) was the only one who, at least formally, spent more than three-quarters of a productive life covering more than five decades as a musician to a noble family. Thus he might be called a ‘court musician’, a Kapellmeister serving at a provincial court outside Vienna. This courtly status was, however, anachronistic if we consider the role played by the composer in the general development of European music — because, from at the latest the 1780s until the turn of the century, Haydn was probably the single most influential and individual contributor to the formation of the style of instrumental music: and this at a time when publishers and musicians in Paris, Amsterdam, London and elsewhere had as yet little reliable information about him or about his activities. Why, then, did he continue in this outmoded position until the end of his life? Did he perhaps consciously lead a double life and, from the safety and financial security of a court musician’s status, after a time work almost exclusively for external consumption? Furthermore, how could Haydn, for the bulk of the year living in the provinces (in Eisenstadt or Eszterháza), cut off even from Vienna, exert a more enduring influence on the public (and partly also on the composers) of Europe’s musical centres than the leading composers who resided there?

He did not know himself how celebrated he was abroad, and he heard of it only occasionally from travelling foreigners who visited him. Many of these, even Gluck, advised him to travel to Italy and France, but his timidity and his limited circumstances held him back; and if he spoke a word about it in the hearing of his Prince, the latter pressed a dozen ducats into his hand, and so he abandoned all such projects again.¹

My Prince was content with all my works, I received approval, I could, as head of an orchestra, make experiments, observe what enhanced an effect, and what weakened it, thus improving, adding to, cutting away, and running risks. I was set apart from the world, there was nobody in my vicinity to confuse and annoy me in my course, and so I had to be original.²