In the spring of 1732 in the quaint village of Rohrau, Austria, Franz Joseph Haydn was born. His father Mathias was a wheelwright like his father before him, and had a strong sense of ambition and pride which he also instilled in his children. Neither Haydn’s mother nor Mathias could read music. Even so, the large Haydn family was known to spend the time following their evening meal singing songs around the accompaniment of a harp. This musical family laid the framework for a boy that was destined to become an incredible composer with a long and impressive collection of compositions. Although, there certainly has to be much more to a musical legend than a simple musical background. This paper outlines some of the major events leading up to
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Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Karl Georg Reutter. Reutter was in search of new choirboys and Haydn’s enthusiasm and pure tone caught his fancy. Haydn sang under Reutter for nine years. As his young boy voice got deeper and deeper, he became increasingly mischievous and disobedient and Reutter could no longer handle it in his boychoir. At the age of 17, Joseph Haydn was turned out into the world with no money and no prospects. Eventually he found work acting as an accompanist during vocal lessons for Niccolo Porpora, an admired composer of vocal music. This relationship grew into Haydn’s becoming a permanent assistant to Porpora. As his assistant, Haydn began to gradually mix with the nobility, the only people in eighteenth-century Vienna that were able to help support the livelihood of young composers. Through a series of connections, Haydn found himself a new job as the Kapellmeister (music director) for the Austrian Count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin of Bohemia around 1759. He was to organize all the music that the Count’s sixteen member orchestra performed and during the summer months of 1759, he composed and presented his first symphony. This job was Joseph Haydn’s first big step forward socially, financially, and career wise. In modern terms, it could be called his first “big kid job”.
Like many first jobs, the odds seemed to be stacked against Haydn. Within a year of beginning …show more content…
Haydn composed in a style that often surprised audiences, especially in his symphonies. He liked to use strong contrast within the tonality and the dynamics, and often used the element of surprise to dazzle his audiences. Often times he would use tonal surprises in the beginning of a composition in order to foreshadow the direction of the rest of the piece. Symphony No. 99 is a shining example of this contrasting style that Haydn loved to employ so often.
Symphony No. 99 is a sonata style piece scored for two flutes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and the typical strings. The analytical chart for movement 1 provides a complete analysis of the score, but for the purposes of exploring some of Haydn’s musical surprises, this paper only discusses up through the
Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Karl Georg Reutter. Reutter was in search of new choirboys and Haydn’s enthusiasm and pure tone caught his fancy. Haydn sang under Reutter for nine years. As his young boy voice got deeper and deeper, he became increasingly mischievous and disobedient and Reutter could no longer handle it in his boychoir. At the age of 17, Joseph Haydn was turned out into the world with no money and no prospects. Eventually he found work acting as an accompanist during vocal lessons for Niccolo Porpora, an admired composer of vocal music. This relationship grew into Haydn’s becoming a permanent assistant to Porpora. As his assistant, Haydn began to gradually mix with the nobility, the only people in eighteenth-century Vienna that were able to help support the livelihood of young composers. Through a series of connections, Haydn found himself a new job as the Kapellmeister (music director) for the Austrian Count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin of Bohemia around 1759. He was to organize all the music that the Count’s sixteen member orchestra performed and during the summer months of 1759, he composed and presented his first symphony. This job was Joseph Haydn’s first big step forward socially, financially, and career wise. In modern terms, it could be called his first “big kid job”.
Like many first jobs, the odds seemed to be stacked against Haydn. Within a year of beginning …show more content…
Haydn composed in a style that often surprised audiences, especially in his symphonies. He liked to use strong contrast within the tonality and the dynamics, and often used the element of surprise to dazzle his audiences. Often times he would use tonal surprises in the beginning of a composition in order to foreshadow the direction of the rest of the piece. Symphony No. 99 is a shining example of this contrasting style that Haydn loved to employ so often.
Symphony No. 99 is a sonata style piece scored for two flutes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and the typical strings. The analytical chart for movement 1 provides a complete analysis of the score, but for the purposes of exploring some of Haydn’s musical surprises, this paper only discusses up through the