Preparing to Hear Masterworks: Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn is a member of the triumvirate of composers—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven—who define the Classical Style of Western music history.  Haydn was singularly responsible for establishing the string quartet as an essential genre of classical music.  In his symphonies one may trace the evolution of orchestra music from the fledgling works of the liminal Sturm und Drang era to the masterful, surely wrought “London” Symphonies.  His piano sonatas and piano trios are marvels of invention and imagination.  After two lengthy sojourns in England during which he heard polished performances of Handel’s oratorios, he produced two striking oratorios of his own, The Creation and The Seasons, which brought him new adulation in both England and mainland Europe.

This seminar will not attempt to give a broad picture of Haydn’s oeuvre.  Rather, it will focus on four works—a piano sonata, a string quartet, a symphony, and The Creation—as introductory examples of his practice.  This is the first of a series of seminars on this renowned yet under-appreciated composer.