Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn spent nearly thirty years as court composer to the Esterházy family, then, freed in 1790, travelled to London, where he wrote the twelve London symphonies in his early sixties. The oratorio The Creation followed in 1798, when he was 66, and remains among the most performed choral works. The long court years gave him the craft; the freedom of his last decade let him write for huge public audiences.