In Britain, Haydn's reputation was revived for reasons unlike those seen on the continent or in the United States to this point. Here William Henry Hadow argued in favor of Haydn's supposed Croatian ancestry and his quotation of Croatian folksongs to frame Haydn as an ethnic Slavic composer and a patriotic nationalist suitable for use as template to be followed by early twentiethcentury composers—especially those on the British Isles—seeking musical immortality. This concept of a “Croatian Haydn” substantially increased the overall awareness of the composer and his music in the early decades of the century. More important for Haydn's revival was the interest that this “ethnic Haydn” held for contemporary composers: Haydn was an influential factor in serious composition once again.

British participation in the broader revival of Haydn's reputation in the first decades of the twentieth century divides into two distinct stages. The impetus behind the initial stage of Haydn's revival in Britain was an urge to demonstrate the validity of borrowing folk songs as a compositional basis in order to justify the practices Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and others. The same basic idea, based on the same ethnomusicological research, was used toward the same end by Hungarians such as Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and even American composers found themselves influenced in part by these folk song arguments. Donald Tovey, the subject of chapter 9 and the lead figure in the second phase of the British reappraisal of Haydn, reacted against these same viewpoints, to more lasting effect.

Hadow Defines Haydn

The English image of Haydn prior to Tovey was shaped largely by William Henry Hadow (1859–1937). Hadow lectured on music, composed on occasion, and was an influential scholar who in 1909 was appointed to the editorship of the Oxford History of Music. He was more widely known for his influence on educational policy; his 1926 “Hadow Report,” given to the Royal Board of Education, successfully proposed the creation of high schools in Britain. In the realm of music education, his attachment to the use of folk song as an elementary teaching strategy can be seen as a part of a larger international trend that culminated in, among other things, Zoltán Kodály's methodology.