Haydn Mozart and the Viennese School 1740-1780. by Daniel Heartz

Abstract

The idea for this book began in the mid-1970s as a commission from W. W. Norton to write a volume entitled Music in the Classic Era, in the Norton History of Music series. Having already completed chapters on Naples, Venice, Paris, and Mannheim, however, Heartz realized during a research trip to Vienna in 1981 that since it was this city which formed the epicentre of the stylistic influences on the music of Haydn and Mozart, it should also form the core of his study. A fi.trther problem was that Heartz was becom‘Classical style’ and ‘Classical period’, and thus uncomfortable also with the projected title. A time span of 1740 through 1780, corresponding to the reign of Empress Maria Theresia, now seemed appropriate, reflecting her influence as cultural patron in Vienna and mapping the stylistic continuity from Wagenseil and Gluck through Haydn and Mozart.