The Autobiographical sketch (1776) of Joseph Haydn is the only autobiographical document that was ever prepared by this composer. Haydn wrote the sketch, which is about two pages long, when he was 44 at the request, relayed to him by a chain of two mutual acquaintances, of Ignaz de Luca, who was preparing a volume of brief biographies of Austrian luminaries, Das gelehrte Oesterreich ("Learned Austria"). The sketch was published in 1778, in Volume 1, Part 3 of that work.
