Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) is one of the most prominent composers during Classical period. His best-known works are mostly instrumental music pieces. His String Quartet and Symphony are especially highly regarded. Haydn also created vocal music, of which the two Oratorios: Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten are widely popular and considered his master pieces. Although the art songs were not Haydn’s major music compositions, they gain a special significance in Hydan’s contribution to the music history.

The melody of Haydn's art songs is beautiful. The majority of Haydn’s art songs are composed in German. Exceptionally, the two sets of Haydn’s Original Canzonettas are written in English. The two sets consist of a total of twelve English art songs. In this research, five songs are selected from the two Original Canzonettas. They are“The Mermaid's Song”, “Recollection”, “A Pastoral Song”, “Fidelity”and“She Never Told Her Love”. The lyric of these five songs are English poems by Anne Hunt and Shakespeare.

There are five chapters in this research. The first chapter is an introduction. Haydn’s background and his key vocal compositions are mentioned in the second chapter. In the third chapter, the background about the creation of Original Canzonettas are discussed and the lyric composers introduced. In the following chapter, the music and the interpretation are analyzed. A summary of this research is stated in the last chapter. From this research, the author has gained a deeper understanding on Haydn's English art songs, and built a sound foundation when performing these songs.