Taught by Robert Greenberg
The music of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) is so technically superb, so widely imitated, and so rich in both quality and quantity that almost since the moment of its creation it has summed up the Classical style.
More than any other single composer, it was Haydn who created the Classical-era symphony. And his 68 string quartets? They are the standard by which all other Classical string quartets were and are judged. No less an expert than Mozart wrote that it was from Haydn that he himself had learned how to write quartets.
And yet this gentle, creative dynamo, who penned more than 1,000 works over a 50-year career and remained musically vital well past middle age, is all too often thought of as "Papa" Haydn, an aged figure surpassed and overshadowed by Mozart and Beethoven.
|