Joseph Haydn died in Vienna on May 31st, 1809 aged seventy-seven. The cultural elite of the city, the cradle of European classical music, was present two weeks later at his funeral where Mozart's Requiem was played. This exceptional man, who is often called the father of the string quartet and of the symphony, had, despite his modest origin, become, by his hard work, one of the favourite composers of the eighteenth century. The catalogue of Haydn's compositions, according to the classification of the Dutch musicologist Anthony von Hoboken (1887-1983), consists of 750 works including symphonies, chamber music, piano sonatas, concertos, choral pieces, operas, oratorios and masses. The four works present on this CD were composed between 1763 and 1784, a period when Haydn was in the service of the Ezterhazy family, one of the most respectable noble families of Europe in this epoch. Haydn joined that family in 1761, as assistant to music maste...