Joseph Haydn

HAYDN, (Franz) Joseph. b. Rohrau, Lower Austria, 31 March 1732; d. Gumpendorf, near Vienna, 31 May 1809. He and his brother Michael Haydn* grew up in the environment of the late Austrian Baroque period — he was a chorister at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and later enjoyed a long career as a composer, initially under patronage (notably with Nicholas of Esterházy between 1761 and 1790) but later, able to earn his living without aristocratic support, he was a free artist who was lionised in Paris and especially in London. Immensely successful in all genres — opera, choral and instrumental music — he is perhaps most venerated as the ‘father of the symphony and the string quartet’ and the...

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