Great Composers: In Search of Haydn

Director: Phil Grabsky

Narrator: Juliet Stevenson

Interviewees and cooperative musicians:  Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Roger Norrington, The Orchestra of the 18th Century with Frans Brüggen, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company, Ronald Brautigam, The Endellion String Quartet, Gautier Capuçon
 Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège with Pablo González ,
Marc-André Hamelin, Sophie Bevan
, Wilke te Brummelstroete, 
Alison Balsom, Emanuel Ax, Rémy Baudet
, Tim Blanning, Jonathan Impett, David Wyn Jones
, Joseph Kalichstein, Bayan Northcott
, Rupert Ridgewell, Dr. Walter Reicher
, Richard Wigmore

In this eagerly-awaited documentary, Phil Grabsky’s biographical account of Haydn’s life is a visual and aural extravaganza, including breath-taking performances by some of the world’s most celebrated musicians.

A delight for music lovers and does honour to a central composer we too often take for granted’ – Santa Fe New Mexican

Following his award winning documentaries, In Search of Mozart and In Search of Beethoven, Phil Grabsky completes the trilogy with In Search of Haydn.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was one of the greatest musical innovators. Mozart and Beethoven greatly looked up to him as an inspiration and yet today in concert halls he is perhaps too often overshadowed in favour of his younger contemporaries.

As Andras Schiff recently pointed out:

“The world needs to appreciate him much more: of all the really great composers, he is still the most underrated”.

By speaking to some of the greatest living exponents of Haydn’s music, this film redresses the balance and sheds light on the master and his work. Phil Grabsky hopes that Haydn will reach a wider audience who will be surprised, entertained and enthralled by Haydn’s wit, humanity and insatiable creativity.

Haydn’s life spanned from the end of the Baroque period to Napoleon’s invasion of Vienna, outliving his younger friend Mozart. He was one of the most prolific composers, producing more than 100 symphonies, 64 quartets, 16 extant operas, 51 piano sonatas and the oratorios ‘The Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’.

His seemingly light-hearted, placid temperament embraced the troubles and tribulations of life with casual humour and irony. Though blessed by an encouraging patron, running his own orchestra and opera company for some 30 years on the Esterhazy Estate, he was exposed to the usual upstairs-downstairs antics of an aristocratic household and follies of an artistic world. These years proved to be enormously productive, inspiring Haydn to write numerous works to please his patron and his eminent guests with witty theatrical evenings, jokes and the occasional prank.

Phil Grabsky follows the same format of presenting the composer’s biography and music chronologically. Through intimate and revealing interviews with experts and detailed extracts from Haydn’s personal recollections, the audience gains tremendous insight not only into Haydn’s music but an appreciation of the artist himself. The emphasis of the film, as with the previous films, is on the performance – and interpretation – of Haydn’s music, with performances from the world’s greatest musicians and orchestras.

Narrator: Juliet Stevenson

Interviewees & Performers:

Gianandrea Noseda
Music Director of the Teatro Regio Torino, Gianandrea Noseda is among the most sought-after conductors of our time.


Sir Roger Norrington

The Orchestra of the 18th Century with Frans Brüggen
Once the world’s most famous recorder player, today Frans Brüggen is considered among the foremost experts in the performance of eighteenth century music. In 1981, Brüggen and friends founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, which consists of some fifty-five members from more than twenty different countries.

Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques

Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company

Ronald Brautigam
Ronald Brautigam, one of Holland’s leading musicians, is remarkable not only for his virtuosity and musicality but also for the eclectic nature of his musical interests.

The Endellion String Quartet
The Endellion is renowned as one of the finest quartets in the world. Everywhere, the Endellion String Quartet ‘sets the audience ablaze’ (Daily Telegraph) and ‘captivates concertgoers with a remarkable rapport, playing to each other with a sense almost of discovery, communicating to the audience on a level of unusual intimacy’ (Guardian).

Gautier Capuçon
 Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège with Pablo González 
Marc-André Hamelin

Sophie Bevan
Wilke te Brummelstroete
Alison Balsom
Twice crowned ‘Female Artist of the Year’ at the Classic BRITs, Alison Balsom has cemented an international reputation as one of classical music’s great ambassadors and is ranked among the most distinctive and ground-breaking musicians on the international circuit today.

Emanuel Ax
Rémy Baudet

Tim Blanning
Jonathan Impett
David Wyn Jones

Joseph Kalichstein
Bayan Northcott

Rupert Ridgewell
Dr. Walter Reicher

Richard Wigmore

Performances featured in the film (in order of appearance):