Joseph Haydn

He turns the piano sonata into a theatre of character, where phrases breathe and accelerate, flourishes skitter, and slow movements feel hard-won rather than merely pretty. The keyboard version of The Seven Last Words of Christ, which he thoroughly approved, stretches that intensity across long contemplative sonatas and a turbulent earthquake postlude. A D major horn concerto shows the same clarity and good humour. Isolated for decades as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy princes with daily access to his own orchestra, he was forced, as he put it, to become original. From that laboratory came the language of the Classical symphony and string quartet, the Paris and London symphonies, and late oratorios that opened private invention to public awe.