It is well known that over the years the evaluation of Haydn underwent a number of changes. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, no one would have hesitated to call him the greatest of all composers. According to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1802, “The inexhaustible spirit of his masterpieces is admired from Lisbon to St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as behind the ocean and at the Polar Sea.” In the London press he was even called “the Shakespeare of music.”
This international fame was triggered by the six string quartets Op. 33, owing to the recent proliferation of newspapers and musical publishing houses. As soon as his works ceased to be the property of Count Esterházy, Haydn offered them to a multitude of publishers at once, even inviting subscriptions to handwritten copies. Ten years earlier, the incredible novelty of the string quartets Op. 20 had created a stir among musicians: Mozart and Beethoven copied them out, and later Brahms ended up being the happy owner of the autograph. Has there been another composer who bestowed us with a musical cosmos comparable to Haydn’s quartets? Schubert’s lieder may qualify.