Joseph Haydn was one of the most important people involved in the development of the style of classical music that we hear today. He was most prominent during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a musical composer, but how many symphonies did he write?
As an extremely prolific composer, Joseph Haydn wrote 106 symphonies during his active years. His most famous pieces include the London Symphonies, The Creation, Trumpet Concerto, and Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Major, characterized as light, witty and elegant.
Read more below about Haydn’s musical education and why he’s still remembered today.
What Is A Symphony?
A symphony is a large-scale musical composition, usually with three or four movements, intended to be played in concert halls and they were very important during the Classical and Romantic eras.
According to Britannica, symphonic composition during the Classical period (roughly the late 18th to the early 19th century) was dominated by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Haydn wrote far more symphonies than Beethoven, for example, because most of his life entailed writing music for a patron.
According to Richard Murison from Psaudio:
“Haydn and Mozart established that a symphony could be constructed by taking a simple, but highly structured established form such as a Sonata and combining it with both a slower piece and a faster piece by way of contrast, and concluding with an up-tempo musical form which has a propensity to drive towards a satisfying and natural conclusion.”
Self-Taught Genius
When Haydn was a child, he received a basic music education from his cousin. Later on, he served as a chorister for St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, where he gained practical music skills but little knowledge in theory. After being expelled when his voice changed, Haydn taught himself through the study of musical works.
The Father of Symphony
Of Haydn, Britannica claims, “Few composers show such remarkable growth as [him]; from his insignificant youthful pieces, entirely dominated by the style of his pre-Classical elders, to the towering achievement of his last works, his symphonies display an evolution in form and content that had a tremendous effect on his followers.”
Haydn made significant contributions to classical music. He is often called the “Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet” because of his important contributions to these genres. He was also instrumental in the development of the piano trio and in the evolution of sonata form.
Another reason why he’s thought of as the Father of Symphony is that it’s believed that he was the man behind the whole invention of symphonies, to begin with. The earliest symphonies performed regularly during the birth of the common practice period in the 19th century were Haydn’s (according to Spinditty).
According to The Guardian (who mention Haydn in an article about symphonies that revolutionized music), it’s with thanks to Haydn that “the symphony became the place where a composer’s grandest, most original, and most daring thoughts were to be found.”
They say that it’s Haydn’s 22nd symphony that’s the most influential, and claim that it’s an “extraordinary example of the range that he gave to the form. Nobody up to that time had thought of starting a symphony with a noble slow movement, as he does in this piece, nor had anybody ever thought of the extraordinary sound that the symphony begins with.”
Even in death, Haydn is still remembered as the outstanding, truly remarkable composer that he was. He has left his mark on music and was involved in the complete revolutionization of symphonic composing – Haydn made history with how careful he was in ensuring that his symphonies were different to the rest, and this is why he’s celebrated and remembered to this day: because he’s different and he wasn’t afraid to stand out.