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Papa Haydn edit
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Papa Haydn

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The composer Joseph Haydn is sometimes given the nickname "Papa" Haydn. The practice began in the composer's lifetime, and has continued to some extent to the present day.

Contents

"Papa" as a term of affection

After 1766 at the Eszterházy court, Haydn was the Kapellmeister, or boss, for a reasonably large group of musicians. Haydn's authority was evidently rather benevolent, as he often interceded with Prince Eszterházy on behalf of musicians who had gotten in trouble.1 The tale of the Farewell Symphony attests to Haydn's willingness to act on behalf of his subordinates. The practice of calling Haydn "Papa" became increasingly plausible as Haydn's 30-plus years of service in the Eszterházy court went by; with each year, he would have become increasingly older than the average musician serving under him.

In his old age, Haydn remarked to Georg August Griesinger regarding his late, younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that Mozart had called him "Papa".2

"Papa" as founder

Another sense of the term "Papa Haydn" comes from his role in the history of classical music, notably in the development of the symphony and string quartet. While Haydn did not invent either genre, his work is considered important enough in establishing these genres that the labels "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" are often attached to him.3 Even in his own lifetime, this perspective was prevalent. In 1797, the Tonkünstler-Societät of Vienna passed the resolution to make him a life member, "by virtue of his extraordinary merit as the father and reformer of the noble art of music."4

A posthumous and fictionalized portrait of Haydn from the 19th century. For portraits painted from life, see Joseph Haydn

"Papa" as caricature

With the rise of acclaim for Haydn's music during the 20th century, scholars and critics became rather leery of the term, and saw it as a distortion of the composer's work. For example, Haydn scholar Jens Peter Larsen wrote (1980):

For years the nickname 'Papa Haydn' has characterized the composer. Used by his own musicians and others as a tribute of affection and respect, the expression increasingly took on misleading connotations, and came to signify a benevolent but bewigged and old-fashioned classic. The recent revival of interest in Haydn's music has made plain that the traditional picture had become a caricature, and that it gave a false impression of richness and diversity of his development as a composer.

5

Because music education materials still tend to reflect 19th century sources, the term is well known to musicians.

The following rhyme is set to the first bars of second movement of the Surprise Symphony:

Papa Haydn's dead and gone
but his memory lingers on.
When his heart was filled with bliss
he wrote merry tunes like this.

Notes

  1. ^ For discussion and examples, see Geiringer 1982, pp. 46–51
  2. ^ The remark was recorded in a letter Griesinger sent to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, for whom he served as representative. Source: Deutsch (1965, 489)
  3. ^ A. Peter Brown writes, "It is almost a cliché to say that Haydn was the father of the symphony. But it could also be said that he was the father of the string quartet, the piano trio, and the keyboard sonata as we conceive these genres today. But to say that he was the "father" of these genres should not be confused with his being the inventor; instead, he was the prime propagator. Indeed, Haydn's accomplishment was the establishment of these genres in the modern sense." (Brown 2002, 301)
  4. ^ From the online edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
  5. ^ Larsen (1980)

Sources

  • Brown, A. Peter (2002) The first golden age of the Viennese symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  • Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Geiringer, Karl; Irene Geiringer (1982). Haydn: A Creative Life in Music (3rd ed. ed.). University of California Press. xii, 403. ISBN 0-520-04316-2. 
  • Larsen, Jens Peter (1980) "Joseph Haydn", article in the 1980 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Larsen's article was published separately as The New Grove: Haydn, Norton, New York, 1982.
  • The New Grove's current article on Haydn (by Webster and Feder, not by Larsen) includes other material on the term "Papa Haydn".


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