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Why did Joseph Haydn compose more than 150 works for the baryton?
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Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn, detail of a portrait by Thomas Hardy, 1791; in the collection of the Royal College of Music, London.
Joseph Haydn composed more than 150 works for the baryton primarily to satisfy his patron, Prince MiklĂłs EsterhĂĄzy. The prince was a passionate and skilled performer on the instrument, which was a bowed, stringed instrument related to the viol family that featured sympathetic strings. Haydn, who served the EsterhĂĄzy family for nearly 30 years, provided these compositions to support the prince's musical interests and to fulfill his duties as the court's musical director.12