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Haydn

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) spent nearly thirty years as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family at their remote palace in Hungary, an isolation he later described with characteristic clarity: "I was cut off from the world, there was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original." In 1772 he gave his employer a musical hint that the musicians were overdue for leave, writing a symphony in which the players gradually extinguish their candles and depart the stage one by one until only two violinists remain. His two visits to London in the 1790s brought international celebrity, and his sixty-eight string quartets remain foundational to the chamber music repertoire

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