The Life of Haydn
Published on 16. April 2009
Book
Hardback
264 pages
978-0-521-89574-3 (ISBN)
Description
Presenting a fresh picture of the life and work of Joseph Haydn, this biography captures all the complexities and contradictions of the composer's long career. In his lifetime Haydn achieved a degree of fame that easily surpassed that of Mozart and Beethoven. Later his historical significance was more restricted, regarded exclusively as the composer who first recognised the potential of the symphony and the quartet. However, Haydn had also composed operas, oratorios and church music with similar enthusiasm and self-regard. Too easily buttonholed as a Viennese composer, he interacted consistently with the musical life of Vienna only during the earliest and latest periods of his life; London was at least as important in fashioning the composer's fame and legacy. To counter the genial view of the composer, this biography probes the darker side of Haydn's personality, his commercial opportunism and double dealing, his penny-pinching and his troubled marriage.
Reviews / Votes
"The author provides an accessible, insightful, and sympathetically humanistic portrait of the day-to-day existence of the man, bringing to light commonplace practical matters of the life of a musician in the 18th century." --Choice "Jones' concise biography of Franz Joseph Haydn incorporates material discovered in the last thirty years and dwells on his life..." -- The Opera JournalMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
13 Halftones, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
467 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-89574-3 (9780521895743)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
David Wyn Jones
The Life of Haydn
Book
01/2013
Cambridge University Press
€31.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
David Wyn Jones is Professor of Music and Head of School at Cardiff University and has written extensively on music and musical life in the Classical Period. He is the author of The Symphony in Beethoven's Vienna (2006), The Life of Beethoven (1998), Beethoven: The Pastoral Symphony (1996) and is the editor of Music in Eighteenth-Century Austria (1996), all published by Cambridge University Press. His Companion to Haydn (2002) was awarded the C. B. Oldman Prize by IAML UK. He has contributed to several programmes on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4.
Content
Preface; 1. God and country; 2. Serving princes: images of Haydn: 1776; 3. Italian opera at Eszterhaza; 4. 'My misfortune is that I live in the country': images of Haydn: 1790; 5. London-Vienna-London; 6. Viennese composer, European composer; 7. 'Gone is all my strength': images of Haydn: 1809.