English period of Joseph Haydn

When Prince Miklós died in 1790, he was succeeded by his son, Prince Antal, who did not care for music and dismissed most of the court musicians. Haydn was retained, however, and continued to receive his salary. No duties were required of him, enabling Haydn to do whatever he pleased. After such a long time at the Esterházy court, however, the composer was eager to try a different way of life. At this point a violinist and concert manager, Johann Peter Salomon, arrived from England and commissioned from Haydn 6 new symphonies and 20 smaller compositions to be conducted by the composer himself in a series of orchestral concerts in London sponsored by Salomon. Haydn gladly accepted this offer, and the two men set off for London in December 1790.

On New Year’s Day 1791, Haydn arrived in England, and the following 18 months proved extremely rewarding. The many novel impressions, the meeting with eminent musicians, and the admiration bestowed on him had a powerful impact on his creative work. He was feted, lionized, and treated as a genius; Charles Burney published a poem in his honour. The 12 symphonies he wrote on his first and second visits to London represent the climax of his orchestral output. Their virtuosity of instrumentation, masterly treatment of musical forms, and freely flowing melodic inspiration—not to mention their deft wit—endeared the works to British audiences. Their popularity is reflected in the various nicknames bestowed on them—e.g., The Surprise (No. 94), Military (No. 100), The Clock (No. 101), and Drumroll (No. 103).

In June 1792 Haydn left London for Germany. On his journey he stopped at Bonn, where the 22-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven was introduced to him, and it was arranged that the tempestuous young composer should move to Vienna to receive Haydn’s instruction. In a letter of 1793 to Beethoven’s patron, the elector of Cologne, Haydn stated that “Beethoven will one day be considered one of Europe’s greatest composers, and I shall be proud to be called his teacher.”

Haydn’s curiously cool reception on his return to Vienna in 1792 may have strengthened his decision to make a second journey to England in January 1794. The principal compositions of his second visit to London were the second set of London (or Salomon) symphonies (Nos. 99–104) and the six Apponyi quartets (Nos. 54–59). While in London, Haydn reached even greater heights of inspiration, particularly in the last three symphonies he wrote (Nos. 102–104), of which the Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major is one of the greatest of all symphonies. The British public no longer regarded him as a sensation but as an old and well-loved friend. King George III earnestly invited him to stay in England, but Haydn—for reasons that have never been made clear—preferred to return to his native Austria to serve the new head of the Esterházy family, Prince Miklós II.

The late Esterházy and Viennese period

While in London in 1791, Haydn had been deeply moved by the performance of George Frideric Handel’s masterly oratorios. Deciding to compose further works in this genre, he obtained a suitable libretto, and, after settling in Vienna and resuming his duties for Prince Esterházy, he started work on the oratorio The Creation, the text of which had been translated into German by Baron Gottfried van Swieten. The work was planned and executed to enable performances in either German or English; it is believed to be the first musical work published with text underlay in two languages. The libretto was based on the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton and on the Genesis book of the Bible. Composing the oratorio proved a truly congenial task, and the years devoted to it were among the happiest in Haydn’s life. The Creation was first publicly performed in 1798 and earned enormous popularity subsequently. Haydn was thus encouraged to produce another oratorio, which absorbed him until 1801. An extended poem, The Seasons, by James Thomson, was chosen as the basis for the (much shorter) libretto, again adapted and translated—if somewhat awkwardly—by van Swieten so as to enable performance in either German or English. The libretto allowed Haydn to compose delightful musical analogues of events in nature, and as a result the oratorio achieved much success, both at the Austrian court and in public performances (although not in London). Yet its musical imagery was even then seen as old-fashioned—a circumstance ruefully acknowledged by Haydn, who blamed van Swieten’s poor advice regarding text setting.

Haydn’s late creative output included six masses written for his patron Miklós II. Those are among the most-significant masses of the 18th century. He also continued to compose magnificent string quartets, notably the six Erdödy quartets known as Opus 76. In 1797 Haydn gave to the Austrian nation the stirring song “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” (“God Save Emperor Francis”). It was used for more than a century as the national anthem of the Austrian monarchy and as the patriotic song “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” (“Germany, Germany Above All Else”) in Germany, where it remains the national anthem as “Deutschlandlied.” The song was so beloved that Haydn decided to use it as a theme for variations in one of his finest string quartets, the Emperor Quartet (Opus 76, No. 3).

“The Seasons broke my back,” Haydn is reported to have said; and indeed, apart from the last two masses of 1801 and 1802, he undertook no more large-scale works. During the last years of his life, he was apparently incapable of further work. In 1809 Napoleon’s forces besieged Vienna and in May entered the city. Haydn refused to leave his house and take refuge in the inner city. Napoleon placed a guard of honour outside Haydn’s house, and the enfeebled composer was much touched by the visit of a French hussars’ officer who sang an aria from The Creation. On May 31 Haydn died peacefully, and he was buried two days later.