By the early 1770s Haydn had been in the service of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy for a decade. At first this had meant living and working in Eisenstadt, a small town in the Burgenland south of Vienna, the site of the Esterházys’ castle. But in 1766 Nikolaus built his answer to Versailles, a sumptuous summer palace in the low-lying marshland to the east (an area now within Hungary). Eszterháza, as it was called, had its own opera house and a large concert room, providing nightly entertainment when the prince was in residence. There was even a special ‘musicians’ building’, in which the instrumentalists, singers and Haydn lived during the summer months. Here and in Eisenstadt, Kapellmeister Haydn worked hard to keep his musicians supplied with symphonies, operas and chamber music which he directed at the court’s various functions, both ceremonial or social. His contract was such that he was rarely able to spend time away from the court, though paradoxically his reputation as a composer soon managed to reach musical centres in other parts of Europe, most likely through the influence of visitors to performances at Eszterháza.