Directed by Phil Grabsky
102 minutes

In this eagerly-awaited documentary, Phil Grabsky’s biographical account of Haydn’s life is a visual and aural extravaganza, including breath-taking performances by some of the world’s most celebrated musicians. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was one of the greatest musical innovators. Mozart and Beethoven greatly looked up to him as an inspiration and yet today in concert halls he is perhaps too often overshadowed in favour of his younger contemporaries.

By speaking to some of the greatest living exponents of Haydn’s music, this film redresses the balance and sheds light on the master and his work. Phil Grabsky hopes that Haydn will reach a wider audience who will be surprised, entertained and enthralled by Haydn’s wit, humanity and insatiable creativity.

Haydn’s life spanned from the end of the Baroque period to Napoleon’s invasion of Vienna, outliving his younger friend Mozart. He was one of the most prolific composers, producing more than 100 symphonies, 64 quartets, 16 extant operas, 51 piano sonatas and the oratorios ‘The Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’.

His seemingly light-hearted, placid temperament embraced the troubles and tribulations of life with casual humour and irony. Though blessed by an encouraging patron, running his own orchestra and opera company for some 30 years on the Esterhazy Estate, he was exposed to the usual upstairs-downstairs antics of an aristocratic household and follies of an artistic world. These years proved to be enormously productive, inspiring Haydn to write numerous works to please his patron and his eminent guests with witty theatrical evenings, jokes and the occasional prank.