Franz Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), affectionately known as 'Papa Haydn', was born in a wheelwright's cottage in Rohrau. For nearly thirty years, he served as court Kapellmeister to the aristocratic Hungarian Esterházy princes at the remote palace of Eszterháza. As Haydn famously noted, 'I was cut off from the world; there was no one near to confuse me or torment me, and so I was forced to become original.'

Haydn practically single-handedly developed and codified the four-movement classical symphony and the string quartet into the dominant instrumental forms of Western art. His late London symphonies (including Surprise and Clock) and majestic oratorios The Creation (*Die Schöpfung*, 1798) and The Seasons captured cosmic grandeur, wit, and sublime classical equilibrium.