Many music lovers have a clear, if superficial, image of Beethoven in their minds: rebellious, irascible and unkempt, just as they have heard of Mozart's occasional silly jokes and complicated relationship with his father. But what about Joseph Haydn, the oldest member of the Viennese classical triumvirate who set the stage for his friend and, later, for his difficult pupil? Only the vaguest notions of a jovial "Papa" Haydn float around in the collective semi-conscious, but the man himself is, in some fundamental ways, still a mystery to many.
Haydn's surviving correspondence is not as extensive or as revealing as those of his two younger colleagues, yet if one reads carefully (both the lines and what's between them), one can reconstruct a fairly accurate portrait of a musician who was a loyal servant of his aristocratic

patron for thirty years while always remaining a proud artist conscious of his own worth. Haydn was a shrewd businessman when it came to marketing his compositions and ended up as a wealthy man. He was also a devoted "Papa" to his Eszterháza musicians whose interests he defended and whose concerns he shared (and who did call him "Papa" sometimes). He was meticulous and explicit regarding minute details in his music; early on in his career, he already stressed the "very great difference between piano and pianissimo" and harangued his publisher about the proper placement of every single performance marking in the score. Particularly touching are the letters from the last years of his life when he had to turn down invitations because of ill health, while acknowledging the signs of admiration received from all over Europe.