Haydn's career and the idea of the multiple audience

Abstract

For whom did Haydn write? This simple question, easily enough answered by such obvious recipients as his patrons or the public or particular performers, masks a series of more complex questions about Haydn's career as well as about his muse. How did he balance his own desires with those of his patrons and public? How did he respond to the abilities of the performers, whether soloists, orchestral musicians, or students, for whom he composed? How did he seek to communicate with different audiences, and were his communicative strategies and modes of persuasion always successful? While these questions might be asked of any composer, especially those in the later eighteenth century who had to adapt to an evolving menu of career opportunities, they have special pertinence for Haydn, whose career and works reveal, as well as revel in, the idea of the multiple audience that emerged in this period. This essay will explore the ways in which the shape of Haydn's career, his sometimes inexplicably defensive tone in letters and memoirs, and his musical self-assessments stem from this new source of inspiration. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Haydn, unlike C. P. E. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, left no record of disparaging remarks about the public.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 50 citations exist upstream.