Although Joseph Haydn had a wicked sense of humour, he musically never left anything to chance. When he accepted commissions away from his working place at Eszterháza, he conducted extensive research about the performers, the concert hall, and related matters

The village of Rohrau steadily grew from a Roman road and river crossing to support a castle built in the Middle Ages. When the village was attacked in the early 18th century by “a peasant army of the anti-Habsburg Hungarian

As the ‘Father of the String Quartet,’ Haydn did a great deal to standardize the quartet form that we love so well. And yet, while giving him this comfortable title, we always have to recognize his sense of humour in

The story of Haydn’s funeral and last remains is complicated and pretty macabre. It all starts in 1771, when Haydn was director of the Esterházy court orchestra. He conducted and wrote music for that ensemble for many, many years, and

Joseph Haydn paid two extended visits to the city of London, in 1791-2 and again in 1794-5. As one of Europe’s most famous composers and musicians he enjoyed an exceedingly warm reception. The music historian and critic Charles Burney recalls

It was one of those memorable evenings in the history of music. Joseph Haydn had come to London at the age of 62 on a second concert tour arranged by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon. And on 2 February 1795,

What does nothing sound like in music? Silence would be a good starting point, but then it wouldn’t be music. Amazingly, Haydn’s oratorio The Creation “opens with nothing short of a musical impossibility, the sound of infinite nothingness.” A contemporary

Visitations by foreign heads of state can be rather lavish affairs. And that was certainly the case when Archduke Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice d’Este, alongside a retinue of well over one hundred servants, visited the former hunting lodge of Prince