Mark Seeley wrote:

>In the end, in one of the great achievements in the history of music, Haydn
>fused the elegant and the expressive, the orderly and the capricious, the
>formal and the dramatic.

Everything you say above is correct.  However, you have made a summary
of Haydn's life achievements.  I would argue that the different elements
occured at different times of his life in different proportions.  Clearly
we have stages in Haydn's career:  Early years:  Assimulating styles,
formulating his own Count Morzin/Early Eizenstat period:  Beginning to
write works in his own early classical style Sturm und Drang:  Dramatic
youthful (for Haydn) artistic experiment still highly undervalued to this
day.  Middle years:  A sort of laid back reappraisal period.  Probaly when
most of the 'typical' Haydn works were written.  Some people malign these
works.  Yet there are still plenty of masterpieces to pick out.  Late
London + period:  A new style emerges.  Haydn responds to changes in his
own circumstances and the changing political/industrial climate.

Bob Draper
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