Haydn’s life­time saw a series of strik­ing changes in mu­sic­al style. At the time of his birth and child­hood baroque tra­di­tions still pre­vailed. By the end of his life the ap­par­ent sta­bil­ity of the clas­sic­al style was be­ing chal­lenged, not­ably by Beeth­oven. Haydn did not simply live through this long de­vel­op­ment; he was a cent­ral part of it.

Nele Münch­mey­er’s doc­u­ment­ary throws light upon Haydn as the in­geni­ous com­poser and as the private per­son - the "Lib­ertine" in his private life and the "Ser­vant" as the Kapell­meister of Es­terházys’. The film in­cludes ex­cerpts from highly ac­claimed per­form­ances of Haydn works.

Amongst them are: the op­era, Ar­mida with the Ger­man Sop­rano An­nette Dasch, Arias from Haydn per­formed by the Freibur­ger Barock­orchester and the Bari­tone Thomas Quas­thoff, per­form­ances of "Die Schöpfung" and "Die Jahreszeiten" con­duc­ted by Ro­ger Nor­ring­ton.