Haydn was born in Austria and spent most of his career as a court musician for the
wealthy Esterházy family on their estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in
music until the later part of his long life, he was forced to become original.
Haydn was a first rate pianist, although not a concert pianist like Mozart and Beethoven.
He was also a first rate violinist and in earlier years had a fine voice. Haydn wrote over
sixty sonatas for keyboard. The earliest ones were written for the harpsichord or
clavichord and the later ones for piano. In his earlier years Beethoven was a pupil of
Haydn and his early piano sonatas show Haydn’s influence.
Most of Haydn’s piano sonatas have three movements. He also wrote nine sonatas with
two movements and two sonatas with four movements. Only seven of his sonatas are in
minor keys.
Haydn is these days most admired for his symphonies and string quartets but it is
increasingly being realised that his piano sonatas also contain much fine music. He also
wrote many piano trios including the famous ‘Gypsy rondo’ Trio in G major.
HOFGARTNEREI
Liszt’s second generation of Weimar pupils (1869-1886) studied with him in the
Hofgärtnerei, or court gardener’s house. This small two-story house was set aside for
Liszt’s use after his return to Weimar in 1869 following an absence of eight years in
Rome. It was at the end of Marienstrasse, near Belvedere Allee, and backed on to the
Goethe Park. A large music room occupied most of the first floor with tall windows
overlooking the gardens. A Bechstein grand piano stood in the centre of the room and
there was a small upright piano by G. Höhne, a Weimar manufacturer, which in 1885 was
replaced by the Ibach.
Liszt taught at the Hofgärtnerei for seventeen summers from 1869 until a few weeks
before his death on 31 July 1886. Three afternoons a week a dozen or more pupils would
gather in the music room, first placing the music they wished to play in a pile on top of
the piano. When Liszt entered, someone at the back would whisper ‘Der Meister kommt’.
Everyone would stand respectfully and Liszt would go to the piano and look through the
music. When he found a piece he wanted to hear he would hold it up and ask ‘Who plays
this?’ The owner would then come forward and play and Liszt would make comments
and sometimes play parts of the piece himself. As well as pianists, there were composers,
violinists, cellists, singers, painters, poets and scientists. The grand duke and duchess of
Weimar sometimes attended.
Liszt was at pains in his masterclasses to emphasise freedom of expression in the
performance of his own works. He parodied the steady beat of the Leipzig conservatories
and the Clara Schumann School, and often asked his pupils to express in their
performances a scene from nature, an historical incident, an emotion, an idea.