“Today, nearly all of Haydn’s music is available on CD—but he remains a composer who is more admired than played, at least in the concert hall. No celebrated conductor or instrumentalist champions him; no stylishly written English-language narrative biography has yet been published. The absence of such a biography from the extensive Haydn literature helps to explain one reason for his comparative obscurity, which is that his life, though interesting, was not notably eventful.”