Artistic Director Skye McIntosh was faced with a difficult task when she was inspired to put together a words and music survey of the life of her composer hero, Joseph Haydn, for Australian Haydn Ensemble’s collaboration with celebrated actor John Bell.

Haydn Speaks, Australian Haydn Ensemble with John Bell, 2022. Photo © Oliver Miller

He kept journals and wrote letters, but these did not lend themselves to the narrative treatment. Stendhal wrote a famous account of him, even though he never met the composer, and besides he was prone to plagiarism and perhaps not the best fact-checker.

In short, Haydn’s life was less Hollywood than those of his two famous pupils, Mozart and Beethoven. Trapped in the bubble of the Esterhazy court in rural Hungary for 30 years, he was in a virtual cultural lockdown, forced to be original and inventing the symphonic and string quartet forms along the way.

His marriage was unhappy. The liaisons he had were discreet and he later became regarded as an affable, avuncular figure – Papa Haydn – from a poor background, his enormous body of work overshadowed by his brilliant protégés.

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