Composers Influenced
-Ludwig van Beethoven
"Beethoven was ... greatly influenced by Haydn and studied with him for a time" (mfiles). "Haydn’s most celebrated pupil was Ludwig van Beethoven, and his musical form casts a huge shadow over the music of subsequent composers such as Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms." (Biography.com). "Beethoven was always quick to criticise his old teacher. He once said, "I never learned anything from Haydn." (classicfm). "In August 1795, Beethoven performed his newly composed three Piano Trios opus 1 in the salon of Prince Lichnowsky, with Haydn - who had just returned from London - as guest of honour.
Haydn - 63 years of age - was tired. The trip to London had been exhausting, and he had a gruelling commission to fulfil. The three Trios, in performance, comprise more than an hour and a half of music. By the end of the third and final Trio, Haydn was seriously tired. Beethoven hurried over to his teacher and asked him what he thought. Haydn had the temerity to suggest that the third Trio needed more work on it before it was published. Beethoven was horrified - and he never forgot Haydn's criticism" (Classicfm). "The influence that Haydn had on Beethoven was not as obvious as with Mozart but some early sting quartets were dedicated to Haydn and showed some strong thematic unity with Haydn’s. The art of developing motives and animating the texture by means of counterpoint was also built upon Haydn’s earlier examples" (Ernie Miranda)
Haydn - 63 years of age - was tired. The trip to London had been exhausting, and he had a gruelling commission to fulfil. The three Trios, in performance, comprise more than an hour and a half of music. By the end of the third and final Trio, Haydn was seriously tired. Beethoven hurried over to his teacher and asked him what he thought. Haydn had the temerity to suggest that the third Trio needed more work on it before it was published. Beethoven was horrified - and he never forgot Haydn's criticism" (Classicfm). "The influence that Haydn had on Beethoven was not as obvious as with Mozart but some early sting quartets were dedicated to Haydn and showed some strong thematic unity with Haydn’s. The art of developing motives and animating the texture by means of counterpoint was also built upon Haydn’s earlier examples" (Ernie Miranda)
-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Franz Joseph Haydn "was full of praise for the talents of Mozart, but Mozart himself was clearly inspired by the works of Haydn although he was to explore new directions himself" (mfiles). "Around 1785, Haydn met Wolfgang Mozart on a couple of occasions and even congratulated him for his creations in music. His gradual collaborations with other musicians made him write a series of quartets that were then, popularly christened ‘Haydn’s quartets’ by his friend, Mozart" (TheFamousPeople). "Haydn exerted influence on the likes of Mozart" (Biography.com). "Some early signs of Haydn’s influence starts to appear in Mozart’s symphonies composed around 1772. A little later on a renewed contact that Mozart had with Haydn inspired him even more with the use of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) that Hayden was using in his works of the time" (Ernie Miranda).
Modern Music
"Two hundred years after his death in May 1809, Joseph Haydn remains one of the least acclaimed of the great classical composers. Of course he faces stiff competition for recognition, especially from his immediate contemporaries. His friend twenty-four years his junior, Mozart, continues to engage us, and not only because of a fascination with extraordinary genius" (logosjournal). "Haydn’s pupil in Vienna in the early to mid-1790s, Beethoven, has in the minds of some excelled all other composers because his works exemplify the highest aspirations of humanity, relegating composers before him to the status of mere precursors. To make matters worse for Haydn, Beethoven complained about his teaching, and we have been much too prepared to accept only his side of the story. Can we even talk about a great Viennese triumvirate that includes Haydn, who was something of a late bloomer in comparison to his two illustrious contemporaries, from a peasant background, bogged down in the mosquito infested swamps of Eszterháza in the service of an aristocratic patron, unlike Mozart and Beethoven, who broke those bonds? They clearly appeal more to our democratic sensibilities, while Haydn appears on the surface to be stuck in an ancient regime time warp well after most of Europe and America had moved forward" (logosjournal). "If we look at the state of the symphony and the string quartet at the start of his career, we have to concede two points: the symphony existed primarily as a type of service composition, providing an overture for opera or celebrating the occasions of noble visitors and events such as court weddings, and the string quartet did not exist. Forty years later, when he left England in 1795 after his second sojourn, the symphony had become elevated to a place of enormous respect, standing on equal footing with opera as a type of public composition, not just for the nobility but for the new audience that had emerged and covered a broader social spectrum. Not only had audiences in London raved about his symphonies, but concert societies throughout Europe did the same. Of even greater importance than the new popularity of the symphony is the fact that Haydn created symphonies that could engage an audience as any other work of drama could, and in the process could address social, religious, and philosophical issues, using purely instrumental music to do it. When Beethoven found his “new way” just after the turn of the century and wrote the “Eroica” Symphony as his first realization of that way, he had a venue for that type of work thanks to Haydn, and he also had a model for a symphony to be something other than a celebratory piece. Had it not been for Haydn creating this model, Beethoven may simply have continued to write symphonies like his first two, if he had continued with this genre at all" (logosjournal).