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Haydn: The Early Years 1732-1765
This volume, the first of five, covers the period of Joseph Haydn's childhood and early creative years; it sets the scene - both historical and musical - in Europe (and especially Austria), and provides a detailed account of Haydn's family background and the circumstances in which he grew up. In addition to the chronicle of events and separate discussion of his works - a basic formula adopted for all five volumes of this biography - a vital ingredient of this first volume is a consideration of the principal musical influences in Haydn's youth, with examples taken from works (by composers now largely forgotten) which he would certainly have known.
- GenresMusic
656 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
H.C. Robbins Landon
86 books9 followersHoward Chandler Robbins Landon was an American musicologist, journalist, historian and broadcaster, best known for his work in rediscovering the huge body of neglected music by Haydn and in correcting misunderstandings about Mozart.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 28, 2023
It took a long time for me to find this book, and it was definitely worth the effort. It is part of a massive five-volume "documentary biography" of Joseph Haydn. A documentary biography tells the story of a life by incorporating the extant documents (often covering minutiae) that survive from that person. In the case of Haydn, the early chapters of the book quote from several biographies of Haydn that appeared during his lifetime, or were written by people who knew him well. These are quoted verbatim, usually in their original languages (French, German, and Italian), though some German documents are translated, and the Italian biography, which is rather prolix, is summarized in English. Interspersed between the documents H.C. Robbins Landon inserts commentary, including discussions of the reliability of the various writers.
As the story of Haydn's life progresses, we begin to get more mundane documents like contracts that he signed, or contracts that musicians in his employ signed. And we also get Landon's commentary on the surviving compositions by Haydn in the relevant periods. In these sections there are generous musical examples to give a sense of the works under discussion.
Though this volume tells the story of the first part of Haydn's life, it was evidently not the first volume of this series to appear. There are many references to the succeeding volumes, as well as a list of errata or additions to those volumes at the end of this book.
Before reading this book, I had the impression that Haydn did not come into his own as a composer until later in his career, say the 1770s. This was based on playing through his piano music. His early piano sonatas are fairly slight pieces, while his middle period begins to bring more interesting music. But it seems clear that Haydn was already a master by the 1750s. He just wasn't necessarily writing keyboard music, and when he was, they were probably pieces intended for beginning students. I now have a much better sense of how Haydn developed, and the milieu in which he moved. I look forward to volume II!
As the story of Haydn's life progresses, we begin to get more mundane documents like contracts that he signed, or contracts that musicians in his employ signed. And we also get Landon's commentary on the surviving compositions by Haydn in the relevant periods. In these sections there are generous musical examples to give a sense of the works under discussion.
Though this volume tells the story of the first part of Haydn's life, it was evidently not the first volume of this series to appear. There are many references to the succeeding volumes, as well as a list of errata or additions to those volumes at the end of this book.
Before reading this book, I had the impression that Haydn did not come into his own as a composer until later in his career, say the 1770s. This was based on playing through his piano music. His early piano sonatas are fairly slight pieces, while his middle period begins to bring more interesting music. But it seems clear that Haydn was already a master by the 1750s. He just wasn't necessarily writing keyboard music, and when he was, they were probably pieces intended for beginning students. I now have a much better sense of how Haydn developed, and the milieu in which he moved. I look forward to volume II!
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