He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". He was a friend and mentor of Mozart , a tutor of Beethoven , and the elder brother of composer Michael Haydn.
Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau , Austria , a village that at that time stood on the border with Hungary. Neither parent could read music; [d] however, Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician , who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp.
According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his family was extremely musical, and they frequently sang together and with their neighbours. Haydn's parents had noticed that their son was musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain serious musical training.
It was for this reason that, around the time Haydn turned six, they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg , that Haydn be apprenticed to Frankh in his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Frankh to Hainburg and he never again lived with his parents. Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry [7] and humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing.
He also sang treble parts in the church choir. There is reason to think that Haydn's singing impressed those who heard him, because in [e] he was brought to the attention of Georg Reutter the Younger , the director of music in St.
