KILAR | BACH | HAYDN

After the Beethoven Year, we are slowly starting to reach for the works of other Viennese classics. This time the concert program will feature a Haydn's symphony, remembered by history as the one which set all the rules so that Mozart and Beethoven could then freely break them. If you've ever been in such a situation, you know how ungrateful it is.
 

We will discuss Joseph Haydn's biography more comprehensively in the future, but what is important now is his thirty-year service at the court of the Esterházy princes – a Hungarian aristocratic family that was absurdly rich at the time. On May 1, 1761, Haydn entered Eisenstadt Castle as a prince's composer, conductor, book and instrument collector, and music staff head. A year later, Miklós József "the Magnificent" took over the principality. Five years later, the dazzling Esterház Palace's construction, with one hundred and twenty rooms decorated with gold, began. Not surprisingly, under such favourable conditions, Haydn focused on writing hundreds of compositions, including 523 songs, 321 chamber music pieces and 24 operas – almost all for the use of the princely court.