Haydn and Mozart - Compare & Contrast

Haydn and Mozart are two prominent composers who wrote music in the Classical era. Because of this, they share similar musical styles and characteristics in their works. However, they are surprisingly different when it comes to their personal lives. Here, we will be investigating more on this topic.

Haydn was born in 1732 in a small village called Rohrau, Austria. Similarly, Mozart was also born in Austria in a town called Salzburg, in the year 1756. Both had childhood talents, and were regarded as child prodigies. As they got older, however, their musical pathways started to take vastly different forms.

In the Classical era, patronage was an important part in how composers of the day got their support. This is where the two composers are set really far apart. Mozart, in particular, struggled with the patronage system, moving from place to place and changing jobs often. He developed rocky relationships with his patrons and employers, and was in a poor financial state overall. This is partially due to the odd personality that he developed from his childhood. On the other hand, although Haydn had difficult times when he worked as a freelance musician, he eventually gained stable positions with famous and wealthy families (notably the Esterhazy’s) and often stayed with them for several years. Through this, he developed stable relationships with his patrons and employers, thus benefiting from the patronage system.

In terms of their individual style, however, they aren’t all too different. Haydn used simple folk melodies with a narrow range and sometimes his works were quite humorous. He also was known for his sudden accents and syncopation. Mozart, however, was more suited to the ideals of the Classical era: balance, poise, and elegance. We can hear in his music the elegant, lyrical, and symmetrical 4-bar phrases that he creates, the way that he is able to make an instrument ‘sing.’ We can hear this in the second movement in Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik in particular. No wonder his works are considered some of the world’s best music, even despite all the troubles he had gone through in his life! Haydn also has this quality in some of his works, but he doesn’t use it as much in general. Haydn was known more as the ‘father’ of the symphony and string quartet because of his significant contributions to both genres (hence his nickname ‘Papa’ Haydn), whereas Mozart contributed to virtually every genre of his time, including sonata form and the concerto.

As you can see, even despite both of these composers writing music in the same time period, and both of them being former child prodigies, the lives of these two musical giants can be very different. We can see how this has impacted their music as well.