The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Sultan Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), the second volume of Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, explores the relationship between Western playwrights, composers and visual artists of the eighteenth-century and Turkish-Ottoman culture, as well as the interest of Ottoman artists in European culture. Twenty-seven contributions by renowned experts shed light on the mutual influences that affected society and art for both Europeans and Ottomans. Successor to the first volume of the series, The Age of Mozart and Sultan Selim III (1756–1808), this book examines the compositions of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and his contemporaries along with events in the Ottoman political era during the time span from Sultan Mahmud I (b.1696, r.1730–1754) to Sultan Mahmud II (b.1785, r.1808–1839). Taking Haydn’s Türkenopern (‘Turkish operas’) Lo speziale (1768) and L’incontro improvviso (1775) as the departure point, the articles collected in this publication reflect the growth of research in the area of cultural transfers between the Ottoman Empire and non-Ottoman Europe, as expressed in theatre, music and the visual arts.
