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Title: Life of Haydn
       Biographies of Musicians

Author: Louis Nohl

Translator: George P. Upton

Release Date: April 13, 2022 [eBook #67827]

Language: English

Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
             produced from images generously made available by Cornell
             University Digital Collections)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HAYDN ***


[Illustration: JOSEPH HAYDN.]




  _BIOGRAPHIES OF MUSICIANS._

  LIFE OF HAYDN

  BY
  LOUIS NOHL.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

  BY
  GEORGE P. UPTON.

  “_Heart and Soul must be free._”

  CHICAGO:
  JANSEN, McCLURG, & COMPANY.
  1883.




  COPYRIGHT,
  BY JANSEN, MCCLURG, & CO.
  A. D. 1882.


  STEREOTYPED, AND PRINTED
  BY
  THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY.




INTRODUCTION.


The abridged Life of Haydn, by Dr. Nohl, prepared originally as a
contribution to a series of biographies, which is issued in popular
form in Germany, is so simple in its narrative, that it would hardly
need an introduction, were its subject-matter confined to the record
of Haydn’s life, with its many musical triumphs, or to the portraiture
of this genial, child-like and lovable master. The trials and troubles
of his youth, their intensification in his married life, his marvelous
musical progress, his seclusion at Eisenstadt, his visits to London
and his introduction to its gay world in his old age, followed by
such wonderful musical triumphs, make a story of extraordinary
personal interest, which the author has heightened with numerous
anecdotes, illustrating his rare sweetness and geniality. There are
many discursions, however, in the work, in which Dr. Nohl analyzes the
component parts of Haydn’s musical creations, and traces the effect of
his predecessors as well as of his cotemporaries upon his development
as an artist. To understand these, it must be remembered that the
author deals with music from a philosophical standpoint, choosing
Schopenhauer for his authority, the philosopher whom Wagner admires
so much, and who makes the Will the basis of all phenomena. Applied
in a musical sense therefore, music is not a matter of sweet sounds,
whether melody or harmony, nor is its principal office the creation
of pleasure by these sounds, but it is the chief agent of the Will
in giving expression to its impulses. What this theory is, has been
stated by Richard Wagner himself in his “Essay on Beethoven,” in the
following words: “The mere element of music, as an idea of the world,
is not beheld by us, but felt instead, in the depths of consciousness,
and we understand that idea to be an immediate revelation of the
unity of the Will, which, proceeding from the unity of human nature,
incontrovertibly exhibits itself to our consciousness, as unity with
universal nature also, which indeed we likewise perceive through
sound.” The definition will afford a clue to some of the author’s
statements, and may help to make clearer some of his musical analyses.
The rest of the work may safely be left to the reader. It is the record
of the life not only of a great musician, but of a lovable man, who is
known to this day among his own people, though almost a century has
elapsed since his death, by the endearing appellation of “Papa.”

                                                                G. P. U.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.

  HIS YOUTH AND EARLY STUDIES.

  Haydn’s Birth and Family--His Early Talent--First Studies with
    Frankh--Chapel-boy at St. Stephens’--Ruetter’s
    Instructions--Early Compositions--His Mischievous Tricks and
    Dismissal--Anecdote of Maria Theresa--Acquaintance with
    Metastasio--Influence of Philip Emanuel Bach--The Origin of
    his First Opera, “The Devil on Two Sticks.”                     7-39


  CHAPTER II.

  AT PRINCE ESTERHAZY’S.

  Haydn’s Studies with Porpora--His Italian Operas--Engagement
    with Count Von Morzin--His First String Quartet--An
    Unfortunate Marriage--Domestic Troubles without
    End--Appointment as Capellmeister at Esterhaz--His Orchestra
    and Chorus--Rapid Musical Progress--His Most Important
    Earlier Compositions--Development of the Quartet--Personal
    Characteristics and Anecdotes--The Surprise
    Symphony--Influence of his Life at Esterhaz upon his Music.    40-89

  CHAPTER III.

  THE FIRST LONDON JOURNEY.

  A Winter Adventure--The Relations of Mozart and Haydn--Mozart’s
    Dedication--The Emperor Joseph’s Opinions--Letters to Frau
    Von Genzinger--A Catalogue of Complaints--His Engagement
    with Salomon--The London Journey--Scenes on the Way--A
    Brilliant Reception--Rivalry of the Professional
    Concerts--The Händel Festival--Honors at Oxford--Pleyel’s
    Arrival--Royal Honors--His Benefit Concert--Return to
    Vienna.                                                       90-135


  CHAPTER IV.

  THE EMPEROR’S HYMN--THE CREATION AND THE SEASONS.

  Criticisms at Home--His Relations to Beethoven--Jealousy of
    the Great Mogul--His Second London Journey--The Military
    Symphony--His Longings for Home--Great Popularity In
    England--Reception by the Royal Family--His Gifts--Return
    to Vienna--Origin of the Emperor’s Hymn--The Creation and
    the Seasons--Personal Characteristic--His Death--Haydn’s
    Place in Music.                                              136-195




THE LIFE OF HAYDN.




CHAPTER I.

1732-1753.

HIS YOUTH AND EARLY STUDIES.

  Haydn’s Birth and Family--His Early Talent--First Studies with
    Frankh--Chapel-boy at St. Stephen’s--Reutter’s Instructions--Early
    Compositions--His Mischievous Tricks and Dismissal--Anecdote of
    Maria Theresa--Acquaintance with Metastasio--Influence of Philip
    Emanuel Bach--The Origin of his First Opera, “The Devil on Two
    Sticks.”


“See, my dear Hummel, the house in which Haydn was born; to think that
so great a man should have first seen the light in a peasant’s wretched
cottage.” Such were the words of Beethoven, upon his death-bed in 1827,
as he spoke of the father of the symphony and quartet, both of which he
himself brought to their highest perfection.

Joseph Haydn was born March 31, 1732, at the market-town of Rohrau,
near Bruck, on the river Leitha, which at that point separates Lower
Austria from Hungary. The little place belonged to the Counts Harrach,
who erected a memorial to his honor in their park upon his return from
his London triumphs in 1795.

Haydn’s father was a wheelwright, and the craft had long been
followed by the family. He had traveled as a master-workman, and in
his wanderings had been, it is said, as far as Frankfort-on-Main.
His marriage was blessed with twelve children, six of whom died very
young. They were brought up religiously in the Catholic faith, and as
they were poor, they were also accustomed to economy and industry. In
his old age, Haydn said: “My parents were so strict in their lessons
of neatness and order, even in my earliest youth, that at last these
habits became a second nature.” His mother watched over him most
tenderly, but his father alone lived to enjoy the recompense of such
care, when his son was installed as Capellmeister. The manner in which
he remembered his mother’s grave many years later in his will reveals
the strength of her influence.

His father, who was “by nature a great lover of music,” had a fair
tenor voice, and during his travels accompanied himself on the
harp without knowing a note. After the day’s toil, the family sang
together, and even when an old man, Haydn recalled with much emotion
these musical pleasures of his boyhood. The little “Sepperl,” as he
was called, astonished them all with the correctness of his ear and
the sweetness of his voice, and always sang his short simple pieces to
his father in a correct manner. More than this, he closely imitated
the handling of a violin-bow with a little stick, and upon one such
occasion a relative, from the neighborhood, observed the remarkable
feeling for strict tone and time, in the five-year-old boy. This
relative, who was the schoolmaster and choir-leader in the neighboring
town of Hainburg, took the lad, who was intended for the priesthood,
to that place, that he might study the art which it was thought would
undoubtedly open a way to the accomplishment of this purpose. After
this, Haydn only returned home as a visitor, but that he remembered
it and his poor relatives all his life with esteem and affection,
is evidenced by this remark in his old age: “I live not so much for
myself as for my poor relatives to whom I would leave something after
my death.” His “Biographical Notices” say he was so little ashamed
of his humble origin that he often spoke of it himself. In his will,
he remembers the parish priest and schoolteacher as well as the poor
children of his humble birth-place. In 1795, when he revisited it,
upon the occasion of the dedication of the Harrach memorial, before
alluded to, he knelt down in the familiar old sitting-room, kissed
its threshold, and pointed out the settle where he had once displayed
in sport that childish musical skill which was the indication of his
subsequent grand artistic career. “The young may learn from my example
that something may come out of nothing; what I am is entirely the
result of the most pressing necessity,” he once said, as he recalled
his humble antecedents.

In Hainburg, Haydn learned the musical rudiments and studied other
branches necessary to youth, with his cousin Matthias Frankh. In an
autobiographical sketch, about the year 1776, which may be found in the
“_Musikerbriefe_” (Leipsic, 1873, second edition), he says: “Almighty
God, to whom I give thanks for all His unnumbered mercies, bestowed
upon me such musical facility that even in my sixth year I sang with
confidence several masses in the church choir, and could play a little
on the piano and violin.” Besides this, he learned there the nature
of all the ordinary instruments, and could play upon most of them. “I
thank this man, even in his grave, for making me work so hard, though
I used to get more blows than food,” runs one of his later humorous
confessions. Unfortunately, the latter complaint corresponded to
the rest of his treatment in his cousin’s house. “I could not help
observing, much to my distress, that I was getting very dirty, and
though I was quite vain of my person, I could not always prevent the
spots upon my clothes from showing, of which I was greatly ashamed--in
fact, I was a little urchin,” he says at another time. Even at that
time he wore a wig, “for the sake of cleanliness,” without which it is
almost impossible to imagine “Papa Haydn.”

Of the style of musical instruction in Hainburg, we have at least one
example. It was in Passion week, a time of numerous processions. Frankh
was in great trouble, owing to the death of his kettle-drummer, but
espying little “Sepperl,” he bethought himself that he could quickly
learn. He showed him how to play and then left him. The lad took a
basket, such as the peasants use for holding flour in their baking,
covered it over with a cloth, placed it upon a finely upholstered
chair, and drummed away with so much spirit that he did not observe
the flour had sifted out and ruined the chair. He was reprimanded, as
usual, but his teacher’s wrath was appeased when he noticed how quickly
Joseph had become a skillful drummer. As he was at that time very short
in stature, he could not reach up to the man who had been accustomed
to carry the drum, which necessitated the employment of a smaller man,
and, as unfortunately he was a hunchback, it excited much laughter in
the procession. But Haydn in this manner gained a thoroughly practical
knowledge of the instrument and, as is well known, the drum-parts in
his symphonies are of special importance. He was the first to give
to this instrument a thorough individuality and a separate artistic
purpose in instrumental music. He was very proud of his skill, and,
as we shall see farther on, his ideas were of great assistance to a
kettle-drummer in London.

This first practical result convinced his teacher that Haydn was
destined for a musical career. His systematic industry was universally
praised, and his agreeable voice was his best personal recommendation.
The result was, that after two years of study he went to Vienna, under
happy, we may even say the happiest, of auspices.

The Hainburg pastor was a warm friend of Hofcapellmeister Reutter. It
happened that the latter, journeying from Vienna on business, passed
through Hainburg and made the pastor a short visit. During his stay he
mentioned the purpose of his journey, namely, the engagement of boys
with sufficient talent as well as good voices for choir service. The
pastor at once thought of Joseph. Reutter desired to see this clever
lad. He made his appearance. Reutter said to him: “Can you trill, my
little man?” Joseph, thinking perhaps that he ought not to know more
than people above him, replied to the question: “My teacher even can
not do that.” “Look here,” said Reutter, “I will trill for you. Pay
attention and see how I do it.” He had scarcely finished, when Haydn
stood before him with the utmost confidence and after two attempts
trilled so perfectly that Reutter in astonishment cried out, “bravo,”
drew out of his pocket a seventeen-kreuzer piece, and presented it to
the little virtuoso. This incident is related by Dies, the painter, who
was intimate with Haydn from 1805 until his death, and who published in
1810 the very interesting “Biographical Notices” of him.

The little fellow meanwhile devoted himself to vocal practice until his
eighth year, when he was to enter the chapel, for the Hofcapellmeister
had made this stipulation when he promised the father to advance his
son. As he could find no teacher who was versed in the rules, he
studied by himself, and following the natural method, learned to sing
the scales and made such rapid progress that when he went to Vienna,
Reutter was astonished at his facility.

The chapel was that of St. Stephen. In addition to frequent religious
services, the boys were also obliged to work at various kinds of
outside labor, so that their musical improvement was considerably
hindered. In spite of this, Haydn says that besides his vocal
practice, he studied the piano and violin with very good masters, and
received much praise for his singing, both at church and court. The
general course of studies included only the scantiest instruction in
religion, writing, ciphering and Latin; and art, the most important
of all to him, was so much worse off that at last he became his
own teacher again. Reutter troubled himself very little about his
chapel-scholars, and was a very imperious master besides; “and yet,”
said Haydn afterward, “I was not a complete master of any instrument,
but I knew the quality and action of all. I was no mean pianist and
singer, and could play violin concertos.” Singing chiefly occupied his
time and strength, for he contended that a German instrumental composer
must first master vocal study in order to write melodies. He considered
this all his life as of the greatest importance and often complained
because so few composers understood it. Among all the results of his
youthful artistic training, secured in his ten years’ chapel service
in Vienna, these two were the most important. He continually heard _a
capella_, that is, pure choral music with its contrapuntal texture,
and also learned all forms of solo singing and instrumental music, and
so thoroughly also that he was at home in all of them. And yet, “honest
Reutter” had only given him two lessons in musical theory!

Dies relates other characteristic anecdotes of his youthful time.
Notwithstanding his advancement had been neglected, Joseph was
contented with his position, and for this reason only, that Reutter was
so delighted with his talent that he told his father if he had twelve
sons he would take care of all of them. Two of his brothers indeed
came to the chapel, one of them Michael Haydn, afterward Capellmeister
at Salzburg, with whom Mozart’s biography has made us acquainted, and
Joseph had the “infinite pleasure” of being compelled to instruct
them. Even under such circumstances, he busily occupied himself with
composition. Every piece of paper that came into his hands he covered
with staves, though with much trouble, and stuck them full of notes,
for he imagined it was all right if he only had his paper full. At one
time Reutter surprised him just at the moment when he had stretched
out before him a paper more than a yard long, with a _Salve Regina_ for
twelve voices, sketched upon it. “Ha! what are you doing, my little
fellow?” said he. But when he saw the long paper he laughed heartily
at the plentiful rows of _Salves_, and still more at the ridiculous
idea of a boy writing for twelve voices, and exclaimed: “O, you silly
youngster! are not two voices sufficient for you?” These curt rebuffs
were profitable to Haydn. Reutter advised him to write variations to
his own liking upon the pieces he heard in church, and this practice
gave him fresh and original ideas which Reutter corrected. “I certainly
had talent, and by dint of hard work I managed to get on. When my
comrades were at their sports, I went to my own room, where there was
no danger of disturbance, and practiced,” says Haydn.

Dies, speaking further of this time in Haydn’s youth, says: “I must
guess at many details, for Haydn always spoke of his teacher with a
reserve and respect which did honor to his heart”--feelings all the
more to his credit when we consider the following statements, from the
same authority: “What was very embarrassing to him and at his age must
have been painful, was the fact that it looked as if they were trying
to starve him, soul and body. Joseph’s stomach observed a perpetual
fast. He went to the occasional ‘academies,’ where refreshments were
provided as compensation for the choir-boys, and once having made this
valuable discovery, his propensity to attend was irresistible. He tried
to sing as beautifully as he could that he might acquire a reputation
and thus secure invitations which would give him the opportunity of
appeasing his gnawing hunger.” At such times, when not observed, he
would fill his pockets with “nadeln” or other delicacies. Reutter
himself had very little income from which to pay his choir-boys, so
they had to famish.

Notwithstanding he sensitively felt the misery of his condition,
Haydn’s youthful buoyancy did not desert him. Dies says: “At the time
the court was building the Summer Palace at Schonbrunn, Haydn had to
sing there with the church musicians in the Whitsuntide holidays.
When not engaged in the church he joined the other boys, climbing the
scaffolding and made considerable noise on the boards. One day the
boys suddenly perceived a lady; it was Maria Theresa herself, who at
once ordered some one to drive away the noisy youngsters, and threaten
them with a whipping if they were caught there again. On the very next
day, urged on by his temerity, Haydn climbed the scaffolding alone, was
caught and received the promised punishment which he deserved. Many
years afterward, when Haydn was engaged in Prince Esterhazy’s service,
the Empress came to Esterhaz. Haydn presented himself and offered his
humble thanks for the punishment received on that occasion. He had to
relate the whole story, which occasioned much merriment.”

At that time we behold our hero in an exalted and dignified position,
but how thorny was the upward course!

“The beautiful voice with which he had so often satisfied his hunger,
suddenly became untrue and commenced to break,” says Dies. The Empress
was accustomed to attend the festival of St. Leopold at the neighboring
monastery of Klosterneuburg. She had already intimated to Reutter,
in sport, that Haydn “could not sing any more, he crowed.” At this
festival, therefore, he selected the younger brother, Michael, for the
singing. He pleased the Empress so much that she sent him twenty-four
ducats. As Haydn was no longer of any service to Reutter in a pecuniary
way, and particularly as his place was now filled, he decided to
dismiss his superfluous boarder. Haydn’s boyish folly accelerated
his departure. One of the other choir-boys wore his hair in a queue,
contrary to the style, and Haydn had cut it off. Reutter decided that
he should be feruled. The time of punishment came. Haydn, now eighteen
years of age, sought in every way to escape, and at last declared that
he would not be a choir-boy any longer if he were punished: “That will
not help you. You shall first be punished and then march.”

Reutter kept his word, but he counseled his dismissed singer to become
a soprano, as they were very well paid at that time. Haydn, with
genuine manliness, would not consent to the tempting proposal, and late
in the autumn of 1749 he started out in the great world in which he was
such a stranger, “helpless, without money, with three poor shirts and a
thread-bare coat.” After wandering about the streets, distressed with
hunger, he threw himself down on the nearest bench and spent his first
night in the damp November air, under the open heavens. He was lucky
enough to meet an acquaintance, also a choir-singer, and an instructor
as well. Though he and his wife and child occupied one small chamber,
he gave the helpless wanderer shelter--a trait of that Austrian
humanity which, at a later period, was reflected in the exquisite tones
of Haydn’s art. “His parents were very much distressed,” says Dies
again; “his poor mother, especially, expressed her solicitude with
tearful eyes. She begged her son to yield to the wishes and prayers of
his parents and devote himself to the church. She gave him no rest,
but Haydn was immovable. He would give them no reasons. He thought
he expressed himself clearly enough when he compressed his feelings
into the few words: ‘I can never be a priest.’” In his seventy-sixth
year, he said to the choir-boys who were presented to him: “Be really
honest and industrious and never forget God.” It is evident, therefore,
that it was not the lack of sincere piety that kept him from the
priesthood. He felt that he was called to another and more fitting
sphere, and we now know that his feelings and impulses did not deceive
him.

Necessity, however, came near forcing him into the life he had so
resolutely refused, for he got little money from the serenades and
choir-work in which he took part, though at other times it left him
the wished-for leisure for study and composition. The quiet loneliness
in that little dark garret under the tiles, the complete lack of
those things which can entertain an unoccupied mind, and the utter
piteousness of his condition, at times led him into such unhappy
reveries that he was driven to his music to chase away his troubles.
“At one time,” says Dies, “his thoughts were so gloomy, or more likely
his hunger was so keen, that he resolved, in spite of his prejudices,
to join the Servite Order so that he could get sufficient to eat. This,
however, was only a fleeting impulse, for his nature would never allow
him to really take such a step. His disposition happily inclined to
joyousness and saved him from any serious outbreaks of melancholy. When
the summer rain or the winter snow, leaking through the cracks of the
roof, awoke him, he regarded such little accidents as natural, and made
sport of them.”

For some time he was not positively sure what course to pursue, and he
projected a thousand plans, which were abandoned almost as soon as they
were formed. For the most part hunger was the motive that urged him on
to rash resolves, for instance, a pilgrimage to the Maria cloister in
Styria. There he went at once to the choir-master, announced himself
as a chapel-scholar, produced some of his musical sketches, and
offered his services. The choir-master did not believe his story and
dismissed him, as he became more importunate, saying: “There are too
many ragamuffins coming here from Vienna, claiming to be chapel-boys,
who can’t sing a note.” Another day, Haydn went to the choir, made the
acquaintance of one of the singers and begged of him his music-book.
The young man excused himself on the ground that it was against the
rules. Haydn pressed a piece of money into his hand and stood by him
until the music commenced. Suddenly he seized the book out of his
hands and sang so beautifully that the chorus-master was amazed, and
afterward apologized to him. The priests also inquired about him and
invited him to their table. Haydn remained there eight days, and, as
he said, filled his stomach for a long time to come, and afterward was
presented with a little purse made up for him.

Among the bequests in Haydn’s will of 1802 is the following: “To the
maiden, Anna Buchholz, one hundred florins, because her grandfather
in my youth and at a time of urgent necessity lent me one hundred and
fifty florins, without interest, which I repaid fifty years ago.” This,
for him a considerable loan, enabled him for the first time to have a
room of his own where he could work quietly. This was not far from the
year 1750. Dies relates, in the year 1805: “Chance placed in Haydn’s
hands, a short time before, one of his youthful compositions which
he had utterly forgotten--a short four-voiced mass with two obligato
soprano parts. The discovery of this lost child, after fifty-two
years of absence, was the occasion of true joy to the parent. ‘What
particularly pleases me in this little work,’ said he, ‘is its melody
and positive youthful spirit,’ and he decided to give it a modern
dress.” The mass was by this means preserved and may be regarded as his
first large work. We are thus enabled to date it at the beginning of
the year 1750.

At that time Haydn lived in the Michaeler house (which is still
preserved), in the Kohlmarket, one of the choicest sections of the
city, but was again under the roof and exposed to the inclemency of the
weather. At one time the room had no stove, and winter mornings he had
to bring water from the well, as that in his wash-basin was frozen.
There were some distinguished occupants in the house; the princess
Esterhazy, whose son, Paul Anton, became Haydn’s first patron, and the
famous and talented poet Metastasio, who not long after confided to him
his little friend Marianna Martines as a piano scholar, and paid his
board as compensation. The child must have been well grounded in music,
for thirty years later Mozart frequently played four-handed pieces
with her. Her instruction, after the style of the time, obliged Haydn
to write little compositions. These early pieces circulated freely
but they have all been lost. He considered it a compliment for people
to accept them, and did not know that the music-dealers were doing a
flourishing business with them. Many a time he stopped with delight
before the windows to gaze at one or another of the published copies.
That this work, however, was very distasteful to him is evident from
his own words: “After my voice was absolutely gone, I dragged myself
through eight miserable years, teaching the young. It is this wretched
struggle for bread which crushes so many men of genius, taking the
time they should devote to study. It was my own bitter experience and
I should have accomplished little or nothing if I had not zealously
worked at night upon my compositions.” Urgent as his necessity was, he
declined to take a permanent and good paying position in a Vienna band,
and thereby sell his entire time. “Freedom! what more can one ask for?”
said Beethoven. Haydn insisted upon having it at least for his genius.
Many times in his life he gave expression to this feeling. In his old
age he said to Griesinger: “When I sat at my old worm-eaten piano, I
envied no king his happiness.” We shall see that he had more of real
inward happiness as a composer, than as a pianist.

With such a disposition he easily retained his good humor and
equanimity, and, many of his youthful traits clearly reflect the Haydn
of the genial minuets and humorous finales. For the entertainment of
his comrades, who were never lacking, he once tied a chestnut roaster’s
hand-cart to the wheels of a fiacre, and then called to the driver of
the latter to go on, while he quietly made off, followed by the curses
of the two victims. At another time he conceived the idea of inviting
several musicians at a specified hour to a pretended serenade. The
rendezvous was in the Tiefengraben, where Beethoven lived for a few
years after his arrival in Vienna. They were instructed to distribute
themselves before different houses and at the street-corners. Even
in the High Bridge street, where Mozart lived at a later period,
stood a kettle-drummer. Very few of the musicians knew why they were
there, and each had permission to play what he pleased. Dies concludes
his description of this roguish trick as follows: “Scarcely had the
horrible concert begun when the astonished occupants threw open their
windows and commenced to curse the infernal music. In the meantime
the watchmen approached. The players scampered off at the right time,
except the drummer and one violinist, who were arrested. As they
would not name the ringleader, they were discharged after a few days’
imprisonment.”

It was at this time of his early struggles that he went out one day to
purchase some piano work suitable for study, and acting upon the advice
of the music-dealer took a volume of the sonatas of Philip Emanuel
Bach, the composer, who first placed piano music upon an independent
and so to speak, poetical foundation. “It appears to me,” says this
gifted son of the great Bach, in an autobiographical sketch, “that it
is the special province of music to move the heart.” To such an one
the genial and imaginative nature of our genuine Austrian musician did
involuntary homage from the very first. “I never left my piano until
I had played the sonatas through,” said Haydn, when old, with all
the enthusiasm of youth, “and he who knows me thoroughly can not but
find that I owe very much to Bach, for I understood and studied him
profoundly. Indeed, upon one occasion he complimented me upon it.”
Bach once said that he was the only one who completely understood him
and could make good use of his knowledge. Rochlitz informs us that
Haydn said: “I played these sonatas innumerable times, especially
when I felt troubled, and I always left the instrument refreshed and
in cheerful spirits.” A sketch of this same Bach, dated 1764, says:
“Always rich in invention, attractive and spirited in melody, bold and
stately in harmony, we know him already by a hundred masterpieces, but
not as yet do we fully know him.”

In reality, instrumental music was now for the first time entering with
self-confidence and strength upon the freer path of the opera. The end
of that path, though far distant, was individual characterization. Bach
himself once wrote a preface to a trio for strings. He says in it that
he has sought to express something which otherwise would require voices
and words. It may be regarded as a conversation between a sanguine and
a melancholy person who dispute with one another through the first and
second movements, until the melancholy man accepts the assertion of the
other. At last, they are reconciled in the finale. The melancholy man
commences the movement with a certain feeble cheerfulness, mixed with
sadness, which at last threatens to become actual grief, but after a
pause, is dissipated in a figure of lively triplets. The sanguine man
follows steadily along, “out of courtesy,” and they strengthen their
agreement, while the one imitates the other even to his identity. From
such germs, in which the intellectual idea is more than its artistic
expression, Haydn evolved that which made him the founder of modern
instrumental music, the extreme limit of which is the representation of
the world’s vital will.

Melody, in other words, the vital will illuminated by reason, also
begins at this point to assert its sure mastery, as the song and the
dance were then the essential type of this modern instrumental music.
Key, accent, rhythm, even the rests, now became the conscious means of
fixed color and tone, in which every emotion, every aspiration, every
exertion of our powers has its full value. Harmonic modulations help
to maintain and to deepen the given tone-color. Above all else, the
dissonance is no longer a matter of mere chance or transient charm to
the ear, but the road to an absolute effect, designed by the composer.
Bach many a time sought for it, but Haydn gave it poetical effect. He
does not hesitate, for example, in the finale of the great E flat major
sonata, to introduce the augmented triad, which Richard Wagner uses in
such a strikingly characteristic manner, bringing it in as a prepared
dissonance, but at the same time allowing it to enter freely. And still
more, they had before them the boundless treasures of Sebastian Bach,
which Mozart and Beethoven at a later period opened so fully and which
they emphasized with such heart-stirring power.

The difference of keys moreover became recognized as of greater
value, and the ground-color of pieces is more individual. It does not
follow, however, on this account that the marvelous gifts of native
counterpoint were thrown aside. On the other hand, Haydn, in his
treatment of the so-called thematic development in the second part of
the first movement and in the finale of the sonata, brings them out
according to their proper intellectual value, so that this music also
must be “heard with the understanding.” Finally, the salient points
of the whole style, which was called the “galante,” because it did
not belong to the church or to the erudite but to the salon, is as,
we may say, the grand architectural gradations and building up of the
whole, which gives to it an arrangement of parts like the symmetry of
the Renaissance art, and the same similarity modern music in general
holds to the Gothic of the German counterpoint. Haydn by nature and
every vital function, belonged to active life, with its manifold forms
of thought and changing mental conditions, and, therefore, found the
sonata-form the very best for the depositing of his musical wealth,
and for the magnifying of his own inner powers and capacities by its
further development. It was for this reason that he played the Bach
“Sonatas for Students and Amateurs” with such delight and sat at his
piano so gladly, for it aroused in him a freer activity of fancy and
heartfelt emotions of similar form.

Philip Emanuel Bach’s instruction book, the “Versuch uber die wahre
Art das Clavier zu spielen,” published in Berlin in 1753, with which
Haydn became acquainted shortly afterward, was, in his judgment, “the
best, most thorough and useful work which had ever appeared as an
instruction book,” and Mozart as well as Beethoven expressed the same
opinion, and yet the ridiculous accusation was made after this that
Haydn had copied and caricatured Bach, because Bach was not on good
terms with him. The story may perhaps have arisen from the fact that
Bach in his autobiography (1773) sought to attribute the decline of the
music of his day to “the comedian so popular just now.” This, however,
referred to something entirely different, and in 1783, Bach publicly
wrote: “I am constrained by news I have received from Vienna to believe
that this worthy man, whose works give me more and more pleasure, is
as truly my friend as I am his. Work alone praises or condemns its
masters, and I therefore measure every one by that standard.” Dies even
declares that Haydn, in 1795, returned from London by way of Hamburg to
make the personal acquaintance of Bach, but arrived too late, for he
was dead. Bach died in 1788, and could it be possible that Haydn was
not aware of it? The journey by way of Hamburg had another purpose.

Haydn still kept up his violin practice, and received further
instruction from his countryman and friend, Dittersdorf, afterward the
composer of “The Doctor and Apothecary.” Dies says: “Once they strolled
through the streets at night and stopped before a common beer-house,
in which some half drunk and sleepy musicians were wretchedly scraping
away on a Haydn minuet. ‘Let us go in,’ said Haydn. They entered the
drinking-room. Haydn stepped up to the first fiddler and very coolly
asked: ‘Whose minuet is this?’ The fiddler replied still more coolly,
and even fiercely: ‘Haydn’s.’ Haydn strode up to him, saying with
feigned anger: ‘It is a worthless thing.’ ‘What! what! what!’ shrieked
the interrupted fiddler, in his wrath, springing up from his seat. The
rest of the players imitated their leader, and would have beaten Haydn
over the head with their instruments, had not Dittersdorf, who was of
larger stature, seized him in his arms and shoved him out of doors.”

Dittersdorf himself, in his biography, narrates another instance of
this intimacy. In 1762, he accompanied Gluck to Italy. During his
absence, the famous Lolli appeared in Vienna with great success. On
his return, he resolved to surpass Lolli’s fame, and feigning sickness
he kept his room for an entire week, and practiced incessantly. Then
he reappeared and achieved a success. The universal verdict was, that
Lolli excited wonder and Dittersdorf too, but that the latter played
to the heart also. He adds: “The rest of the summer and the following
winter, I was frequently in the society of the gracious Haydn. Every
new piece of other composers which we heard we criticised between
ourselves, commending what was good and condemning what was bad.”

But let us return to the year 1750. Dies says: “When about twenty-one
years of age, Haydn composed a comic opera with German text. It was
called ‘Der Krumme Teufel,’ (‘The Devil on Two Sticks’) and originated
in a singular way. Kurtz, a theatrical genius, was at that time the
manager of the old Karnthnerthor theater, and amused the public as
_Bernardon_. He had heard Haydn very favorably mentioned, which induced
him to seek his acquaintance. A happy chance soon furnished the
opportunity. Kurtz had a beautiful wife, who condescended to receive
serenades from the young artists. The young Haydn (who called this
‘Gassatim gehen,’ and composed a quintet for just such an occasion in
1753) brought her a serenade, whereat not only the lady but Kurtz also
felt honored. He sought Haydn’s closer acquaintance, and after this,
the following scene occurred in his house. ‘Sit down at the piano,’
said Kurtz, ‘and accompany the pantomime which I will perform for you,
with fitting music. Imagine that _Bernardon_ has fallen into the water
and is trying to save himself by swimming!’ Kurtz calls an attendant
and sprawls across a chair, while it is drawn here and there about the
room, flinging out his arms and legs like a swimmer, Haydn meantime
imitating the motion of the waves and the action of swimming in 6/8
time. _Bernardon_ suddenly sprang up, embraced Haydn, and, nearly
smothering him with kisses, exclaimed: ‘Haydn, you are the man for
me. You must write me an opera!’ This was the origin of ‘Der Krumme
Teufel.’ Haydn received twenty-five ducats for it, and thought himself
very rich. It was brought out twice with great applause and was then
prohibited on account of the offensive personality of the text.”

Here, therefore, we have an example of the fruitful germs of invention
which Haydn displayed in motives and melodies, showing us, as it were,
a personal presence possessing those musical characteristics which
Mozart and Beethoven developed with such striking fidelity to life,
and which by their efforts again invested dramatic representation with
a new language. What the Italian had accomplished only in the way of
a certain native grace of melody, and the French, on the other hand,
with too partial a study in their dramatic recitative and piano music,
German intelligence, and above all, German feeling, accomplished by
the unprejudiced acceptance of melody itself. We also observe, mingled
with these elements, that vein of German humor which first welled up in
complete spontaneity and fullness in Haydn’s music, so that we have, as
it were, all the successive steps of development in the building up of
his artistic individuality. At this point his youth and the main part
of his early education close. We have reached the period of his first
original creation, but it may be of interest, before we close this
first chapter, to add a few words about the opera itself, in order that
we may appreciate the real nature of this first original accomplishment
of the artist as it deserves.

We observe, first of all, that in the test of his skill he was to
illustrate a storm at sea and the struggle of a drowning man, and
that Haydn’s fingers at last involuntarily fell into the movement,
(6/8 time), which the comedian wished. In the piece itself, an old,
love-sick dotard was to be cured and the good-natured devil must help.
The details of this story and many other incidents of that period of
art in Vienna may be found in C. F. Pohl’s “Joseph Haydn,” Vol. I
(Berlin, 1875). But the principal point to be observed here is the
close union of absolute music with the dramatic element, especially
with the action, and that it was the perfection of the genuine humor
of the popular Vienna comedies of that time which first directed
Haydn’s fancy to the expression of pantomime in tones. When the “Krumme
Teufel” was finished, Haydn brought it to Kurtz, but the maid would
not let him in, so we are told, because her master was “studying.”
What was Haydn’s astonishment when looking through a glass door he
beheld _Bernardon_ standing before a large mirror, making faces and
acting comical pantomime! It was the “free, sprightly comedy” which the
Vienna harlequin possessed, and which was now revealed to Haydn in its
complete individuality by personal observation. But finally, while this
humor was kept down at this time by its own crudeness and narrowness,
as soon as the higher dramatic poetry of the German language sprung up
in Austria, it reappeared in a nobler form in music, and it is Haydn
who represented this genuine German popular humor in our art. The last
Vienna harlequin, _Bernardon_, and his buffoonery disappeared, but the
comedy was preserved in full and permanent inheritance by Haydn in his
comic opera, “Der Krumme Teufel.” The opera itself we do not possess,
but its healthy and noble promise is realized all through Haydn’s
instrumental music, to the origin of which we now come.




CHAPTER II.

1754-1781.

AT PRINCE ESTERHAZY’S.

  Haydn’s Studies with Porpora--His Italian Operas--Engagement
    with Count Von Morzin--His First String Quartet--An Unfortunate
    Marriage--Domestic Troubles without End--Appointment as
    Capellmeister at Esterhaz--His Orchestra and Chorus--Rapid Musical
    Growth--His Most Important Earlier Compositions--Development of the
    Quartet--Personal Characteristics and Anecdotes--The Surprise
    Symphony--Influence of his Life at Esterhaz upon his Music.


“His hours were occupied with lesson-giving and studies. Music so far
monopolized his time that at this period no other than musical books
came into his hands. The only exceptions were the works of Metastasio,
and these can hardly be called an exception, as Metastasio always wrote
for music, and therefore a Capellmeister who had determined to try
his powers in opera ought to have been acquainted with his writings,”
says Dies. We know from Haydn himself that an Italian singer and opera
composer was his last instructor in thorough-bass; and that he had
composed much but was not firmly grounded, that is, was not correct
and strong until he had the good fortune to study the fundamental
principles of composition, with the famous Porpora.

The Neapolitan, Nicolo Porpora was in Vienna from 1753 to 1757. He
belonged to that early school of Italian opera which dominated nearly
all Europe. The charm of melody predominated at this time and with it,
the art of singing. They had reached their highest point. Smoothly
flowing melody, however, was considered the main essential, and above
all things, clearness and very simple harmonic structure characterized
this school. Haydn played the accompaniments when Porpora gave singing
lessons to the ten-year-old Martines and to the mistress of an
ambassador, and was paid with lessons in composition from the impetuous
and supercilious old master. “Ass, vagabond, blockhead,” alternating
with blows, greeted this not very accomplished “Tedesco” (German). For
three months he filled the position of servant and blacked his master’s
shoes. “But I improved in singing, in composition and in Italian very
much,” says the modest mechanic’s son, who, plain and simple himself,
loved his art above all else. In fact, compared with the German music
before him, or even with Philip Emanuel Bach’s sonatas, Haydn’s style
at once shows not only that he had abandoned the “Tudesk” (German), of
which the Italians complained, but that he had obtained a more refined
phrasing of melody and a greater clearness of harmony, whereas the art
of Bach had not advanced beyond the intellectual and characteristic. He
also gave up embellishments and manifested a strong desire for the pure
lines, and above all recognized that symmetry of construction which was
rare among the Germans themselves, and yet constitutes an essential
feature of modern German instrumental music.

The first larger works of Haydn were also Italian operas. He prized
them very much himself, and they were also very pleasing to others;
and it was only a deep, inward feeling for the calling he had chosen
and a happy chance, which gave him the opportunity of satisfying that
feeling, that saved him from a course which certainly might have
secured him speedy fame and fortune, but not that immortal halo of
glory which crowns the “Father of the Symphony.” He even declined
an invitation from Gluck, at that time the most celebrated of the
Italian opera-composers, to go to Italy! Apart from this, it may be
said incidentally, we learn of no nearer relations between these two
artists. Temperament, character and the objects of their ambition kept
them widely apart.

Haydn now devoted himself still more earnestly to studies of a
theoretical nature. From sixteen to eighteen hours daily work was his
rule, two-thirds of the time being devoted to the necessities of life.
Mattheson’s “Vollkommener Capellmeister” and the “Gradus ad Parnassum”
of Fux, the Vienna Hofcapellmeister, were his text-books. “With
unwearied determination Haydn sought to master the theory of Fux,” says
Griesinger, the councilor, who met him frequently in 1800, and in 1810
published the “Biographical Notices” of him. He says: “Haydn studied
out the problems, laid them aside some weeks, then looked them over
again and reviewed them often enough to make sure he was master of
them.” Haydn called this work (“Fux’s Theorie”), a classic, and kept
a much worn copy of it all his life. Mattheson’s book was found among
his relics, “completely gone.” This work certainly did not extend his
knowledge of composition, but he prized the method, and educated many a
scholar in it during his life, and among those scholars was--Beethoven.

“He officiated as organist at a church in the suburbs, wrote quartets
and other pieces which commended him still more favorably to amateurs,
so that he was universally recognized as a genius,” says Dies. One of
these amateurs was the councilor, Von Furnberg, “from whom I received
special marks of favor,” says Haydn himself. Von Furnberg, who was
already indebted to Haydn for several trios, was accustomed to have
chamber-music at his villa in Weinzerl, played by the pastor of the
place, his own steward, a violoncellist, and Haydn, and one day
encouraged the latter to write a string quartet. Thus an accident of
his surroundings turned his inventive spirit toward that particular
form of chamber-music, the string quartet, which was destined to be so
wonderful in results. This occurred in 1750.

Much had been already written for the four stringed instruments, but
Haydn gave to the quartet the movements and organic form which he
had found in the sonatas. By the force of his knowledge of harmony
he gave a more spontaneously melodious capacity to the divisions of
the quartet which had hitherto been merely vague and sketchy, so that
their development captivated the player and listener. It was, as it
were, a scene in which four individualities, acting together, play out
a complete and concrete life-picture,--artistic performances, which
appeal to the player, as well as to the artist and poet, in a higher
degree than the simple, plain sonata. Hence the invention of the string
quartet marked an epoch in the history of music.

The first quartet (B flat, 6/8), met with such an instant success and
so actively inspired Haydn himself, that in a short time he produced
eighteen works in this style. And yet a Prussian major who had been
made a prisoner in the Seven Years’ War, who heard these early
productions, says that although every one was in raptures over his
compositions, Haydn was modest even to timidity, and could not bring
himself to believe that they were of any account. Twenty years later,
even, he looked up to Hasse, at that time indeed famous throughout the
world, as a great composer, and declared he would treasure his praise
of his “Stabat Mater” like gold, though it was undeserved, “not on
account of the opinion itself, but for the sake of a man so estimable.”
Who knows Hasse to-day, and who that knows anything of music is not
familiar with Joseph Haydn and his quartets? The English music-hunter,
Burney, mentions that in 1772 he heard them played at Gluck’s!

It contributed greatly to his activity in composition that he was now
in better circumstances. Furnberg had secured for him the appointment
of “director” in the establishment of a music-loving count. The first
quartets breathe the full, joyous humor of his child-like spirit.
Though at first many a one protested against the lowering of music to
mere trifling and was of the opinion that there was no earnest effort
in his compositions, the verdict this time declared itself in favor
of the creator of this style, and many a deeply earnest tone in these
works is a souvenir of happy hours, which even now a quartet-evening
with Haydn affords.

The Count, who in 1759 had installed Haydn as his director--and one
in that position must also be a composer--was the Bohemian nobleman,
Franz von Morzin. He passed his winters in Vienna and his summers at
his country house at Lukavec, where he kept his orchestra, and while
with him Haydn wrote his first symphony. There were symphonies indeed
long before Haydn. Originally, all music in several parts was thus
designated--at first, vocal pieces with instrumental accompaniments,
but after the seventeenth century, instrumental music only. The
instrumental preludes to the Italian operas, in particular, were called
symphonies. The symphony in regular form consisted of an Allegro, an
Adagio and a second Allegro. Haydn made the three movements, which he
had transferred from the sonata-form to the quartet, richer and more
independent, and added to them the Minuet, so that four movements
became the rule. Haydn’s progress, therefore, was exemplified in the
symphony by the freedom and vivacity which he gave to the separate
instruments, but above all, by their skillful combination and the
dynamic gradations of the ensemble. For these he had his models in
the compositions of the Mannheim school, which Mozart so much admired
afterward.

Haydn’s first symphony, in D major, is a prominent example of the
clearness of his method in such larger orchestral work. We shall soon
see that he developed it still farther. His position with the Count,
satisfactory so far as compensation was concerned, might have been
the source of prolific creation, for the Count and his young son were
enthusiastic musical amateurs, but the contract stipulated that he
should remain unmarried. Haydn was then twenty-seven years of age, and
it was not until that time that the charms of the other sex attracted
his attention, and it happened then only by an accident which reveals
to us the innocence of his youth. In his later years he was fond
of telling the story that once when he was accompanying the young
Countess in her singing, she stooped over, so as to see better, and
her neckerchief became disarranged. “It was the first time I had ever
witnessed such a sight. I was embarrassed, my playing ceased, and my
fingers lay idly on the keys,” he told Griesinger. “What has happened,
Haydn,” said the Countess, “what are you doing?” With perfect respect,
Haydn replied: “Who could retain his self-command in your gracious
ladyship’s presence?” The sequel to such an unexpected revelation was
not long in following.

In the autumn of 1760, Haydn was again with his scholars in Vienna.
Among them were two daughters of Keller, a wig-maker, in the
Ungargasse, who had frequently assisted him before this time. The
younger daughter was so attractive to him, that in spite of the
Count’s order, which only made her still more alluring to the fiery
young fellow, he determined to marry her, but to his sorrow, she chose
to enter a convent. “Haydn, you ought to marry my eldest daughter,”
jokingly said the father one day, for he was particularly pleased with
the smart and gifted young director;--and Haydn did so. Whatever may
have been the reason--gratitude, ignorance, helplessness in practical
matters, or the wish to have a wife right away--whatever may have been
the motive, he married, and sorely he had to suffer for it.

His wife was older than he, and this of itself made the relations
between them very uncertain. Besides this, Dies says that she was an
imperious and unfeeling woman, who was incapable of any consideration,
and had earned the reputation of being a spendthrift. The proofs of
her quarrelsomeness and of her heartless treatment of her husband
reveal to us a perfect Xantippe. As compared with the simple, frank
and joyous-hearted Haydn, she was an extreme bigot and prude. Only
a person of his disposition could have endured such a wretched, and
above all, childless marriage. “We were affectionate together, but for
all that, I soon discovered that my wife was extremely frivolous,” he
very mildly said to Dies. He told Griesinger that he was obliged to
carefully conceal his earnings from her on account of her passion for
finery. She was also fond of inviting priests to dine, urging them to
say many masses, and giving more money to them for charity than she
could afford. Very many of Haydn’s masses, and smaller church-pieces,
especially those scattered about in the Austrian convents, are due to
the fact that she availed herself of her husband’s talent to appear
generous. Under such circumstances he naturally did not accomplish his
best work, but wrote in a careless style. Once, when Griesinger, for
whom he had done some favor for which he would not accept anything,
asked permission to make his wife a present, he resolutely replied:
“She does not deserve anything. It is little matter to her whether
her husband is an artist or a cobbler.” She was also particularly
malicious, and purposely tried to offend her husband, using his notes,
for instance, as curl-papers, and in pie dishes, occasioning the
loss, undoubtedly, of many of his earlier scores. One day, when she
complained that there was not money enough in the house to bury him, in
case he died suddenly, Haydn called her attention to a row of canons
which were framed and hung upon the wall of his chamber, in lieu of any
other decoration, and told her that they would bring enough for his
funeral expenses. Notwithstanding his patience and good-heartedness,
he could not overcome an intuitive feeling of repugnance for his wife.
In the year 1805, when the violinist Baillot was visiting him, they
happened to pass a picture in the hall. Haydn stopped, and grasping
Baillot by the arm, said: “That is my wife. Many a time she has
maddened me.”

Is it not natural, then, and excusable also, that at times he sought
solace away from home? * * * An Italian singer, in particular, Luigia
Polzelli, won his affections in later years, and bestowed upon him
a loving sympathy. He writes to her from London in 1792, thirty-two
years after his unfortunate marriage, in furious terms: “My wife,
_bestia infernale_, has written so much stuff, that I had to tell her
I would not come to the house any more, which has brought her again to
her senses.” A year later he says, in a gentler and almost sorrowful
tone: “My wife is ailing most of the time and is always in the same
miserable temper, but I do not let it distress me any longer. There
will sometime be an end of this torment.” The remark in Lessing’s
“Jungere Gelehrten,” “I am obliged to admit that I have had no other
aim than this: to practice those virtues which enable one to endure
such a woman,” exactly apply to Haydn’s case. At last he could bear it
no longer. He procured board for her with the teacher Stoll, at Baden,
who is spoken of in Mozart’s letters, and she died there in 1800. Haydn
dearly earned that exquisite peace which characterized so many of his
adagios, but it was the true rest of the soul, and it is only here and
there that a softly sighing chord reminds us of Wotan’s words: “The
victory was won through toil and trouble from morning until night.” The
unrestrained outpourings of love Haydn could not express. When Adam and
Eve in “The Creation,” or Hannchen and Lucas sing their fond strains,
you never think of Constance and Pamina, and yet Haydn wrote both these
works long after Mozart was dead. The fullness and dignity of true
womanly nature, in which his own wife was wanting, he was elsewhere to
learn and value, as we shall yet see. The tenderer and deeper notes of
the heart are not wanting in his compositions; on the contrary, he was
the first to introduce them in music in all their perfection.

We now resume the course of our narrative. Dies says: “Six months
passed by before Count Morzin knew that his Capellmeister was married.
Circumstances occurred which changed Haydn’s affairs. It became
necessary for the Count to reduce his large expenses and to dismiss his
musicians, and thus he lost his position.” Prince Esterhazy, however,
a short time before, had become acquainted with some of his orchestral
pieces and admired them. His growing fame, his admirable personal
character, besides Morzin’s hearty commendations, secured for him the
position of Capellmeister to the Prince in the same year (1761), and he
held it nearly to the close of his life. This position settled Haydn’s
future as a composer.

The Esterhazy residence is in the little town of Eisenstadt, in
Hungary, where the Prince’s castle supplied accommodation for every
style of musical and dramatic performances. Music in particular
had been patronized by the family for many generations. Here, in
undisturbed quiet, Haydn actively devoted himself to those remarkable
compositions which deservedly proclaim him the founder of modern
instrumental music. The Prince had a pretty complete orchestra, though
it was small, and a modest chorus, with two soloists. It was also
expected that the servants and attendants, after the custom of that
time, would assist as musicians. The entire force of musicians was
placed under the direction of the new Capellmeister, who was raised to
an official position. By virtue of his rank, he was obliged to appear
daily in the antechamber and receive instructions with regard to the
music. He was also expected to compose what music was necessary and
drill the singers. His contract of May 1, 1761, commends the duty
required of him to his skill and zeal, and hopes that he will keep the
orchestra up to such a standard as will reflect honor upon him and
entitle him to further marks of princely favor.

Rarely, indeed, has a hope been more fully realized. The orchestra
was soon a superior one, and it was not long before the works written
for it by Haydn became famous throughout the world. The very first
of the Esterhazy symphonies in C major, known as “The Noon,” showed
that he was determined to bring the Prince as well as the orchestra
to a realization of the work before them. It makes demands upon the
orchestra which this one could not supply till much later, as it
was written in a very large and broad style. It also has in it a
foreshadowing of Beethoven’s dramatic style, in a recitative for violin
with orchestra, introduced in one movement. He himself was also more
thoroughly grounded in his own artistic work. The ever-increasing
interest which the Prince took in him (to Paul Anton, succeeded the
next year, Nicholas, Anton following him in 1790, and a second Nicholas
following Anton in 1795) was a fresh incentive to his creative talent,
so that the confinement in his rural situation during the twenty years
that he passed with the first two Princes did not weigh very heavily
upon him. After 1766, he spent many of the winter months with his
Prince in Vienna. “My Prince was always satisfied with my works. I not
only had the encouragement of steady approbation, but as leader of the
orchestra, I could experiment, observe what produced and what weakened
effects, and was thus enabled to improve, change, make additions or
omissions, and venture upon anything. I was separated from the world,
there was no one to distract or torment me, and I was compelled
to become original.” Such a statement as this, which was made to
Griesinger, shows what an important influence his life at this period
had upon his artistic development.

There are many other interesting details of this Esterhazy life.
Griesinger says: “Fishing and hunting were Haydn’s favorite pleasures
during his stay in Hungary.” Think for a moment what an influence
such an unbroken, restful life in God’s free nature must have had
upon him, especially when it is considered that this had continued
for thirty years and had been his only recreation outside of his own
profession. “The dew-dropping morn, O how it quickens all,” says
Eve in “The Creation.” In the early morning, the best time for his
favorite pleasure, when the sun rose, shining in its full splendor,
“a giant proud and joyous,” or at evening the moon “stole upon” the
home-returning hunter with “soft step and gentle shimmer,” how his
heart must have expanded as the sublime solitude of Nature revealed
itself to him and spoke its own language! It was a time when the sense
of nature rose superior to all the artifices of custom, and her majesty
and chaste purity made a deep impression upon every noble feeling. In
this sacred solitude, which with his beloved art filled his life with
its only happiness and contentment, he stripped off his powdered wig
and stood up clothed in his own pure manhood. What the result was may
be seen in his exuberant melodies, earnest as well as passionate, which
picture the innocent joy of Nature.

Many other things he learned to picture at this time. It was only
that free and appreciative contemplation of Nature, which continual
intimate intercourse with her produces, which enabled him to keenly
observe the characteristics of every one of her phenomena and to give
them conscious expression in his old age, in “The Creation” and “The
Seasons.” The “Noon” symphony was soon followed by the “Morning.” That
he intended to express in this music the “awakening of impressions upon
arriving in the country,” is shown by a concerto which appeared soon
afterward, “The Evening,” and which closes with a storm. According to
Dies, his Prince had commissioned him to make the divisions of the
day subjects for composition. We know by their reception that these
works revealed an entirely new world of music. Beethoven, with his
incomparably deeper feeling for Nature, received his first impulses of
that feeling from this music. The original can only be found in Haydn’s
quiet life at Eisenstadt with Prince Esterhazy. We shall find further
confirmation of the influence of this life in the following details:

The bearing of Prince Nicholas, then in his fortieth year, corresponded
with his surroundings. Rich and distinguished as he was, he had noble
passions. His appearance at Court was brilliant, while the richness
of his jewels was proverbial. But his love of art and science was far
greater than his fondness for show and court display, and in true
Hungarian fashion, music was the dearest of all to him. He was a
genuine Austrian cavalier of the best old times. Goodness of heart,
magnanimity and kindly feeling were his prominent traits of character,
and he manifested these qualities especially toward his orchestra.
“During the entire period of his rule, his records, nearly all of
which begin with the declaration, ‘God be with us,’ are a continuous
series of releases from moneyed as well as other obligations, and
rarely was a request refused,” says Pohl, in his reliable biography of
Haydn. Still he could be severe without retaining animosity. His own
instrument was the baryton, at that time very much admired, which has
long since been superseded by the noble violoncello. Apropos of this
instrument, the following characteristic event occurred:

The Prince played only in one key. Haydn practiced for six months, day
and night, upon the instrument, often disturbed by the abuse of his
wife, and upon one occasion incurred the censure of the Prince for
neglecting his compositions. Thereat, impelled by a fit of vanity,
he played upon the instrument at one of the evening entertainments
in several keys. The Prince was not at all disturbed, and only said:
“Haydn, you ought to have known better.” At first he was pained by the
indifference of his honored master, but he immediately felt it was
a gentle reproof, because he had wasted so much time and neglected
his proper work to become a good baryton player, and turned to his
compositions again with renewed earnestness. For the baryton alone, he
has written upwards of one hundred and seventy-five pieces.

Haydn’s real feelings towards the Prince are shown by his words in his
autobiography of 1776:--“Would that I could live and die with him.”
Upon the accession of the new administration, his salary was increased
one-half, and afterward six hundred florins were added, besides which
he received frequent gifts from the Prince. This helped to appease his
longing to go abroad, particularly to Italy--a longing which many a
time must have arisen in his solitude. He recalled, even in his old
age, with grateful feelings the good and generous Prince Nicholas, who
had twice rebuilt his little house after it had been reduced to ashes
by fires in the city. Though he wrote much, very much, simply for the
Prince’s personal gratification, and consequently much that had little
value, yet the Prince’s knowledge of music was sufficient to realize
Haydn’s constant development and to actively foster it. Haydn was not
under personal restraint, at least not more than was customary in a
court at that time of “literal, primitive despotisms.” Though he was
not the less a courtling, he remained an artist, and clove to his own
rank. “I am surrounded by emperors, kings and many exalted persons, and
I have had much flattery from them, but I will not live upon familiar
terms with them; I prefer the people of my own station,” he said to
Griesinger. In his later years, indeed, he personally asserted his
dignity before his Prince and master. On his return from London, he
bitterly complained because he was addressed by the customary “Er,” as
an inferior, and after that he was always called “Herr von Haydn,” and
“Respected Sir,” or “Dear Capellmeister von Haydn.” Upon one occasion
the young Prince Nicholas expressed his disapproval of a rehearsal,
and Haydn replied: “Your Highness, it is _my_ duty to attend to these
matters.” A glance of displeasure was the only response of His Highness.

With the orchestra itself, which numbered many excellent players,
Haydn had trouble many a time. The easy lenity of the Prince made it
careless, and what the habits of musicians were at that time Mozart’s
biography shows. “The appeals of Haydn are touching and heart-reaching
when he intercedes for those who have erred only through
carelessness,” says Pohl. He also helped to appease the Prince with
specially arranged compositions. To these probably belongs the symphony
in five movements, called “Le Midi,” with a recitative for the first
violinist, Tomasini, who was a special favorite of the Prince--a proof
that the images of his fancy were already influencing him, and that,
like Gluck, he was determined not to be “a mason,” but an “architect.”
That he put his whole soul into these compositions is shown by the
inscriptions at the beginning and end--“In nomine Domini,” “Laus Deo,”
etc.

His most important compositions during his earlier years at Esterhaz
were Italian operas. The Prince had engaged foreign actors, and
the festival occasions at the palace, which as we know were often
attended by royal personages, were made brilliant by these theatrical
performances. During his thirty years stay at Esterhaz more than a
dozen of these works were brought out, some of which Haydn himself
esteemed. They certainly show a copious richness of detail, of harmonic
beauty and of instrumental effects. “When Cherubini looked through
some of my manuscripts, he always hit upon places which were deserving
of attention,” said Haydn to Griesinger, and Cherubini, at that time
an opera composer _par excellence_, might well be concerned about the
superiority of Haydn’s operas. But the qualities which were conspicuous
in Haydn’s instrumental music, the sure movement of the whole work
and the freedom of the intellectual development, were wanting in his
operas. This was Gluck’s contribution to the opera. Haydn had no part
in it. He recognized himself that his operas in originality of form
could scarcely equal those of Gluck in the more modern period. And yet
we shall find that one of his operas was performed in London.

A criticism in the _Vienna Zeitung_ during the year 1766 gives us
another picture of his varied acquirements and of his successful
activity as well as of the character of his genius. He is enumerated
among the distinguished composers of the imperial city at that time
under the title of “Herr Joseph Haydn, the favorite of the nation,
whose gentle character is reflected in every one of his pieces. His
compositions possess beauty, symmetry, clearness, and a delicate and
noble simplicity, which impress themselves upon the listener even
before he has become specially attentive. His quartets, trios and other
works of this class are like a pure, clear strip of water, ruffled by a
southern breeze, quickly agitated and rolling with waves but preserving
its depth. The doubling of the melody by octaves originated with him
and one can not deny its charm. In the symphony, he is robust, powerful
and ingenious; in his songs, charming, captivating and tender; in his
minuets, natural, merry and graceful.”

One can see that in all his leading qualities Haydn was recognized in
his own time. Rigid masters, like Haydn’s predecessor in service, the
Capellmeister Werner, a genuine representative of the old contrapuntal
school, were freely at hand with such epithets as “fashion-hunter” and
“song-scribbler.” But the acute Berlin _Critic_, at that time hostile
to everything South German, declared Haydn’s quartet, op. 19, and the
symphony, op. 18, that they displayed the most “original humor and
sprightly agreeable spirit.” It is J. F. Reichardt who says this:
“Never,” says he, “has there been a composer who combines so much unity
and variety with so much agreeableness and popularity. It is extremely
interesting to consider Haydn’s works in their successive order. His
first works, twenty years ago, showed that he had an agreeable humor
of his own, and yet it was rather mere pertness and extravagant mirth,
without much harmonic depth. But by degrees his humor became more
manly and his work more thoroughly considered, until through elevated
and earnest feeling, riper study, and above all, effect, the matured,
original man and trained artist were manifest.” “If we had only a
Haydn and Philip Emanuel Bach, we Germans could boldly assert that we
have a style of our own, and that our instrumental music is the most
interesting of all,” he says in conclusion.

Haydn had also transferred to the richer string quartet and full
orchestra, the sonata-form founded by Philip Emanuel Bach, the organic
character of which is shown by the theory and history of music. How
he developed this form in its final perfection it is not necessary
to consider in detail at this time. He established, as we know, its
four-part form in the Allegro, Adagio, Minuet and Finale, and by his
great productivity and popularity brought this form into universal use.
He was the first to give to the Minuet, which is attractive in itself,
a popular, genial, and above all, a cheerful, humorous spirit. He very
materially broadened, arranged and elevated the first movement of the
sonata-form, gave to it more fullness and meaning through the organic
development of its own motive substance, deepened the Adagio from a
simple song (cavatina), to a completely satisfying tone-picture, and
above all, by thematic treatment, produced in the Finale the veritable
wonders of the mind and of life. That Haydn greatly heightened the
effect of the symphony by giving to the various instruments their
full development is apparent at once in his music, and yet it should
not be forgotten that Mozart, who had studied the performances of the
orchestras at Mannheim and Paris, also influenced him, above all in
his operas. But the crowning result of Haydn’s work will always remain
the germ of active life which he imparted to this form, and which he
developed so freely that it presented a definite and finished shape.
Haydn first gave the quartet and symphony that style which may be
called its own.

Philip Emanuel Bach’s “Sonatas for Students and Amateurs,” always have
something which may be called studied about them. They are thoughtful
and considered, above all skillful and intellectual; but the free
expression of feeling only appears at intervals, especially in the
Adagio where Bach could depend for his effect upon the operatic aria
and the feeling of the original German Lied. The great Sebastian Bach’s
instrumental works are cyclopean structures, pelasgic monuments,
often the elementary mountains themselves. Many a time there looks
out of the stone, as it were, a visage, but it is a stony-face, like
that on the Loreley or the romantic Brocken--apparition: “And the
long rocky noses, how they snore, how they blow.” They are stone
giant-bodies, mighty Sphynx-images, which conceal more than they tell.
In the sharpest contrast with this music was the opera of that time,
in which fashionable puppets affected an outward, stilted appearance
of dramatic activity. Gluck first stripped off the gaudy tinsel and
revealed the concealed earnestness of the reality. The instrumental
music of the French and Italians suffered also from this affectation
and superficiality of the theatrical music, and Scarlatti, Corelli
and Couperin made the utmost effort to restore the free expression of
feeling and unrestrained nature to their own place in music.

He who first revealed this “natural,” this inborn, and therefore
spontaneous art, in music, speaking through its own nature and with its
own voice, was our Haydn, and it was for this that Beethoven called
him great and posterity has called him immortal. And, as the Italians
say, that no man can paint a more beautiful head than he has himself,
so, though we have seen this Haydn physically and intellectually, what
matters it, if his portrait appears to us reversed in his music?

Haydn was slender but strong, and below the medium height, with legs
disproportionately short, and seeming all the shorter, owing to his
old-fashioned style of dress. His features were tolerably regular,
his face serious and expressive, but at the same time attractive for
its benignity. “Kindliness and gentle earnestness showed themselves
in his person and bearing,” says Griesinger. When he was in earnest,
his countenance was dignified, and in pleasant conversation he had a
laughing expression, though Dies says he never heard him laugh aloud.
His large aquiline nose, disfigured by a polypus, was, like the rest
of his face, deeply pitted by smallpox, so that the nostrils were
differently shaped. The under lip, which was strong and somewhat
coarse, was very prominent. His complexion was very brown. One of his
biographical sketches mentions that he was called a Moor. He considered
himself ugly, and mentioned two Princes who could not endure his
appearance, because he seemed deformed to them. He stuck to his wig,
which has been already mentioned, in spite of all the changing modes,
through two generations, even to his death, but it concealed, to the
disadvantage of the general expression of his physiognomy, a large part
of his broad and finely developed forehead. Lavater, looking at his
silhouette, said: “I see something more than common in his nose and
eyebrows. The forehead also is good. The mouth has something of the
Philistine about it.”

“There was great joyousness and mirth in his character,” says Dies,
and in his old age he said himself: “Life is a charming affair.” Joy
in life was the fundamental characteristic of his existence and his
compositions. His individual lot and his satisfaction with common
things contributed to this. “Contentment is happiness,” says the
philosopher. The unvarying simplicity of his life secured him the
luxury of good health, and next to that, the feeling of joy in living.
But in reality it is not this life-joyousness alone that is reflected
in his works. Though the influence of his outward life and of his inner
development were conducive to quiet reflection and earnest thought, he
preferred to give a sprightly turn to conversation. We have already
learned how deep were his personal attachments and gratitude. He
was also very beneficent and kindly disposed. “Haydn’s humanity was
exhibited to the high and low,” Dies once said, and modesty was his
simple Austrian virtue. Griesinger justly attributes religion as the
basis of all these qualities, which with him was the simple piety of
the heart--not a mere passing impulse, but the All and the Eternal
reflected in him. The result of this beautiful influence upon him
was that he was never imperious or haughty, notwithstanding all the
fame that was so profusely showered upon him during his life. “Honor
and fame were the two powerful elements that controlled him, but I
have never known an instance,” says Dies, “where they degenerated
into immoderate ambition.” He regarded his talent as a blessed gift
from Heaven, and no one was more ready to give new comers their just
deserts. He always spoke of Gluck and Handel with the most grateful
reverence, just as he did of Philip Emanuel Bach. Of his incomparably
beautiful relations with Mozart we shall soon learn. Nevertheless he
was not ignorant of his own worth. “I believe I have done my duty, and
that the world has been benefited by my works. Let others do the same,”
he used to say. He could not endure personal flattery and when it was
offered would resent it. He never allowed his goodness to be abused and
if it were attempted he would grow irritated and satirical.

“A harmless waggishness, or what the English call humor, was a leading
trait in Haydn’s character. He delighted in discovering the comical
side of things, and after spending an hour with him you could not help
observing that he was full of the spirit of the Austrian national
cheerfulness,” says Griesinger. We may well conceive that in his
younger days he was very susceptible to love, and in his old age he
always had compliments for the ladies; but we must understand his
remark that “this is a part of my business,” in the same sense that
Goethe’s “Elegie Amor” is “stuff for song,” and the “higher style” to
the romantic poets. In fact, without some such personal inspiration,
like the ever-glowing and universal fire that animates humanity, many
of his pieces, especially his adagios, can not be understood. “It
has a deep meaning; it is rather difficult, but full of feeling,”
he once said of a sonata, to his highly esteemed friend, Frau von
Genzinger, whom we shall soon meet. It is the one, according to all
the indications, which the letters give, whose Adagio Cantabile is in
B sharp major, 3/4, and has in the second part a grand and mystical
modulation, with shifting of melody in the treble and bass by means of
the crossed hands. The first Allegro is also constructed like a quiet
conversation between a male and female voice. “I had so much to say to
Your Grace and so much to confess, from which no one but Your Grace
could absolve me,” he writes. He begs that he may call her a friend
“for ever,” and the Minuet, which she had asked of him in a letter a
short time before, wonderfully expresses the request.

At a later period in London, he took an English singer, Miss
Billington, under his protection, whose conduct was not highly regarded
and had even been severely criticised in the public press. “It is said
that her character is faulty, but in spite of all this, she is a great
genius, though hated by all the women because she is handsome,” he
writes in his diary. The diary also contains letters from an English
widow, Madame Schroter, who loved him devotedly. “She was still a
beautiful and attractive woman, though over sixty, and had I been
free, I should certainly have married her,” he said upon one occasion
to Dies, with his peculiar roguish laugh. A single extract from
these tender letters is enough for us to understand the depth of her
devotion: “My dearest Haydn, I feel for you the deepest and warmest
love of which the human heart is capable.” Unless it has something to
feed upon, however, the hottest fire will be extinguished. He could not
comprehend in his later life, how so many beautiful women had fallen in
love with him. “My beauty could not have attracted them,” he said in
1805, to Dies, and when the latter replied, “you have a certain genial
something in your face,” he answered: “One may see that I am on good
terms with every one.” “He did not fancy that he was made of any better
material, nor did he seek, through assumed purity, to place himself on
any higher plane of morality than his own opinion justified,” explains
Dies. He was the unaffected child of his Austrian home in a time when
one seemed still to wander in Paradise and life had no thorns.

Thus, from every point of view, Joseph Haydn stands before us an
original, well defined personality, passing, as his life-long bearing
shows us, from an artificial and unnatural time in every way, to
a period of the renewed free assertion of individuality and its
involuntary expression of feeling. He tells us with the utmost naivete,
that it was not composition but inclination and enthusiasm that had
been his inspiration. “Haydn always sketched out his works at the
piano,” says Griesinger. “I seated myself and began to compose,” says
Haydn, “whatever my mood suggested, sad or joyous, earnest or trifling.
As soon as I seized upon an idea, I used my utmost efforts to develop
and hold it fast in conformity with every rule of the art. The reason
why so many composers fail is that they string fragments together.
They break off almost as soon as they have commenced, and nothing is
left to make an impression upon the heart.” He always wrote, impelled
by inspiration, but at first only the outlines of the whole. That it
was this poetico-musical impulse that urged him on, is shown by the
following anecdote:

“About the year 1770, Haydn was prostrated with a burning fever, and
his physician had expressly forbidden him to do any musical work
during his convalescence,” says Griesinger. “His wife shortly afterward
went to church one day, leaving strict instructions with the servant
about the doctor’s orders. Scarcely had she gone, when he sent the
servant away upon some errand, and hurriedly rushed to the piano.
At the very first touch the idea of a whole sonata presented itself
in his mind, and the first part was finished while his wife was at
church. When he heard her coming back he quickly threw himself into bed
again and composed the rest of the sonata there. Mozart and Beethoven
certainly did not at first need the piano in composing, and it is by no
means certain that Haydn also did not find that first movement in bed.
In any case, the anecdote shows the simple, artistic, involuntary power
that moved him.”

From the same source also proceeded the vital personal impulse of his
joyous expression, and the individual physiognomy of the themes and
motives in his compositions. His melody throughout reminds one of the
aria, not in the affected rococo style of Louis Fourteenth’s time,
but based upon grammatical declamation; and it is only a certain
regularly recurring pattern of the melody that makes us feel it belongs
to the very time in which he was living. The separate parts of the
sonata-form were infused with a stronger vitality by this virile humor
and elevated and refined feeling. In this connection Griesinger’s
remark is specially pertinent. “This humor is extremely striking in
his compositions, and this is specially characteristic of his Allegros
and Finales, which playfully keep the listener alternating from what
has the appearance of seriousness to the highest style of humor,
until it reaches unrestrained joyousness.” Dies calls it “popular
and refined, but in the highest sense, original musical wit.” This
musical frolicsomeness opened in reality a new and richly profitable
province for art. It aroused a spirit which had hitherto slumbered, and
from Mozart and Beethoven, even to Schumann and Wagner, we find this
simplest soul-voice and these wonderfully expressive tones, ravishing
and at the same time sorrowful in their nature, springing up; for the
basis of this voice is the involuntary but deep feeling for human life,
sorrowing with its sorrow, merry with its folly, and always intimately
associated with all human actions.

Haydn himself attributes to this state of mind many features of
his Adagios as well as of his Minuets and Finales. The increasing
intellectual progress brought in time “ideas which swept through his
mind and which he strove to express in the language of tones.” He
himself told Griesinger that in his symphonies he often pictured “moral
attributes.” In one of the oldest the prominent idea was that God spoke
to a hardened sinner, beseeching him to repent, but the careless sinner
gave no heed to the admonition. A symphony of the year 1767 is called
“The Philosopher;” a divertimento, “The Beloved Schoolmaster;” and
another work of a later period, “The Distracted One.”

An anecdote of the year 1772 shows us a characteristic illustration
of this artistic life-work. After the year 1766 the Prince made a
summer-residence of the castle at Esterhaz, on the Neusiedler-See,
where he remained fully half the year, accompanied by the best of his
musicians. “I was at that time young and lively, and consequently
not any better off than the others,” said Haydn with a laugh,
especially in reference to the longing of his musicians to go home to
their wives and children. “The Prince must have known of their very
natural home-sickness for some time, and the ludicrous appearance
they presented when he announced to them that he had suddenly decided
to remain there two months longer, amused him very much,” says Dies.
The order plunged the young men into despair. They besieged the
Capellmeister, and no one sympathized with them more than Haydn. Should
he present a petition? That would only expose them to laughter. He put
a multitude of similar questions to himself, but without answer. What
did he do? Not many evenings after, the Prince was surprised in a very
extraordinary manner. Right in the midst of some passionate music one
instrument ceased, the player noiselessly folded up his music, put out
his light and went away. Soon a second finished and went off also; a
third and fourth followed, all extinguishing their lights and taking
their instruments away. The orchestra grew smaller and more indistinct.
The Prince and all present sat in silent wonder. Finally the last but
one extinguished his light, and then Haydn took his and went also.
Only the first violinist remained. Haydn had purposely selected this
one, as his playing was very pleasing to the Prince and therefore he
would be constrained to wait to the end. The end came. The last light
was extinguished and even Tomasini disappeared. Then the Prince arose
and said, “If all go, we may as well go too.” The players meanwhile
had collected in the ante-room, and the Prince said smiling, “Haydn,
the gentlemen have my consent to go to-morrow.” It was the composition
which afterward became well known under the name of “The Surprise
Symphony.”

In like manner Haydn through his music, so to speak, could reduce his
ideas and emotions to practical reality. The Chapter of the Cathedral
at Cadiz desired some music for Good Friday which should follow at the
end of and complete the interpretation of the Seven Words of the Savior
on the Cross, after they had been spoken and explained by the priest.
Haydn himself says in a letter to London, that any text of the nature
of the Seven Words can only be expressed by instrumental music; that it
made the deepest impression upon his mind; and that he justly esteemed
it as one of his best works. It was performed twice at a later period
in London under his own direction. In the Finale he has an earthquake
effect, which was called for the third time at his own benefit concert
there, and is the precursor of the imagery of “The Creation.” The work
as a whole is of decidedly characteristic quality. This was in the year
1780 and that Haydn was selected for the work, shows not only how far
his fame had extended at that time, but above all, that his artistic
ability to invest instrumental music with the gift of language was
unmistakably recognized. Thus the master’s art was firmly established
abroad, and he did not have to wait long before grander themes of
larger proportions were tendered him.

We close with a selection of characteristic expressions made by
Haydn in these earlier years of his work, about his art and artistic
progress, most of which are to be found in the “Musical Letters.”

In the year 1776, he says in that autobiography which was requested of
him for a “Learned National Society” in Vienna, that in chamber-music
he has had the good fortune to please almost all people except the
Berliners. His only wonder was that “these judicious Berlin gentlemen”
kept no medium in their criticisms, at one time elevating him to the
stars, and at another “burying him seventy fathoms deep in the earth,”
and this without any good reason. But he knew the source of all these
attacks upon his artistic work.

The Vienna Pensions Verein for artists’ widows which to-day bears the
name of Haydn, and for which he had written the oratorio “The Return
of Tobias,” stipulated as a condition of his admission to membership,
that besides the above work, he should bind himself to furnish some
composition every year for the benefit of the Society, and in case
of failure to do so should be dismissed. Haydn at once demanded his
deposit back, and addressed them in the following manner: “Dear
friends, I am a man of too much feeling to constantly expose myself to
the risk of being cashiered. The free arts and the beautiful science
of composition can endure no fetters upon their handiwork. _Heart and
soul must be free!_”

This was in the year 1779. It marks the full development of his
artistic consciousness. He was more and more convinced of the lofty
mission of an art which has its source in such creations. In the year
1781, he expressed the wish to have the opinion of the Councilor Von
Greiner, one of the most distinguished connoisseurs in Vienna, often
mentioned in Mozart’s biographies, with regard to the expression of
his songs, and assures his publisher, Artaria, that for variety,
beauty and simplicity, they excel any other he has written. The French
admired exceedingly the pleasing melody of his “Stabat Mater,” work
of that kind not having been heard in Paris, and very rarely indeed
in Vienna. This is all the more remarkable, as Gluck at that time had
already written and brought out his great dramatic works collectively.
Some of his songs had been “wretchedly” set to music by the Vienna
Capellmeister Hoffmann, Haydn goes on to relate, and as this swaggerer
believed that he alone had scaled Parnassus, and sought to crush Haydn
down in certain circles of the great world, he had set the same songs
to show this pretended great world the difference. “They are only
songs, but not Hoffmannish street-songs, without ideas, expression,
and above all, melody,” he closes. We can no longer doubt from this
that he would not suffer his creations to be despoiled of their
spiritually-poetic nature. He would not allow his songs to be sung by
any one until he himself had brought them out in the concert-room.
“The master must maintain his rights by his own presence and correct
performance,” says he. It is this distinctive nature and form of
modern music which is fully revealed for the first time in Mozart and
Beethoven, and music which has been created by the intellect can only
be properly judged by the intellect.

There was also that inner something, “the musical nature,” which
impelled him and urged him on to his most characteristic creations.
“One is seized upon by a conscious mood which will not endure
restraint,” he once said. In like manner at another time he made the
characteristic remark: “The music plays upon me as if I were a piano.”
Apropos of the technical side of music, he characteristically remarked
to Dies in 1805: “If an idea struck me as beautiful and satisfactory
to the ear and the heart, I would far rather let a grammatical error
remain than sacrifice what is beautiful to mere pedantic trifling.”

Finally, that we may point out to the player some instances of this
actual life-painting in tones, let us take the well-known Peters’
Edition, which is easily accessible to every one. First of all,
among the thirty-four piano sonatas, the one in C sharp minor is a
beautiful piece of earnest work and full of character, the Minuet
very melancholy and illustrating the national melody of that southern
people. No. 5 is the clearest picture of buoyant health. One can see
young life at play in the spring-meadows. In No. 7 the music assumes a
strange capriciousness, and in the Largo in D minor, notwithstanding
it is barely eighteen measures long, shows the grand tragic style
of Beethoven, as well as its humor, which recalls the variations in
F minor, whose color and rhythm suggest the funeral march in the
Eroica. The Adagio of the A flat major sonata, No. 8, is a gem of the
intellectual development of all harmonic and contrapuntal means, and
in the Larghetto of No. 20, surely all the nightingales of life are
deliciously warbling. Both of these are complete lyric scenes. Above
all, the first as well as the last sonata of Haydn’s shows a plastic
touch, which clearly reveals this master’s natural and artistic
feeling, and often fills us with overwhelming astonishment at the power
of genius, which in such small limits and with such simple means can
utter things that to-day are immediately recognized, wherever feeling
exists and is capable of manifesting itself in the comprehension of the
mission of human life.

Richer, greater, more inwardly finished, if not always esthetic in
the highest sense throughout, this appears in the quartets, and here,
above all else, we first discover that Haydn in that style was the
forerunner of Mozart and Beethoven alike, and still further, that
he was the original source of the success of the later Italians who
copied his sprightliness, his thoughtful style, amiability and natural
spirit, while the German heroes found their native power and their
free mental conception and method in his own inner life, culminating
in the matchless melody of Franz Schubert. These spirited first
movements, these flowing Finales, these Minuets, these Adagios, full
of ever-increasing and exuberant wit, how irresistibly they seize
upon one! How their warm affection satisfies! It is, in fact, “Idea,
Expression, Melody.” Glance only at the pieces which may be found in
the Peters’ Edition: Op. 54, with the highly characteristic Minuet
and the Finale, is remarkable in itself for a Presto contained in the
Adagio, as well as for being the precursor of the Adagio of Beethoven’s
sonata, op. 31, No. 1. The Adagios in op. 74, op. 76 and op. 77, are
still grander in tone, but not more beautiful or fervent than those of
op. 54 and op. 64. The Adagio in op. 103 has in its concluding measures
somewhat of the blessed and elevated nature of the close of that most
beautiful of all soul-poems which pure music has created,--the Lento of
op. 135, Beethoven’s grave-song. We need not mention the symphonies,
those well-known works of Haydn. Everywhere in his music we meet what
Goethe calls the absolute source of all life--“Idea and Love.”

We have seen that isolation enriched and prospered Haydn. We arrive
now at a period when by his intimate personal association with Mozart,
and his entrance into the great changing outer world, he was destined
to develop his genius to its fullest extent.




CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST LONDON JOURNEY.

1781-1792.

  A Winter Adventure--The Relations of Mozart and Haydn--Mozart’s
    Dedication--The Emperor Joseph’s Opinions--Letters to Frau
    von Genzinger--A Catalogue of Complaints--His Engagement with
    Salomon--The London Journey--Scenes on the Way--A Brilliant
    Reception--Rivalry of the Professional Concerts--The Händel
    Festival--Honors at Oxford--Pleyel’s Arrival--Royal Honors--His
    Benefit Concert--Return to Vienna.


“I am already at home in Vienna by my few works, and if the composer is
not there his children always are in all the concerts,” replied Haydn
to that Charity for artists’ widows, which wished to elect him as a
“foreigner,” upon such severe conditions. We meet with a characteristic
instance of this popularity about the year 1770, when he once, as was
his habit, went to Vienna on business.

It was winter. Over his somewhat shabby garments he had thrown a fur
cloak, whose age was also conspicuous. An uncombed wig and an old
hat completed his costume. Haydn, so great a friend of neatness, on
this occasion would hardly have been recognized. He looked like a
masquerader, when he entered Vienna. At the residence of a Count in
Karnthner Street he heard the music of one of his own symphonies. The
orchestra was powerful, the players good. “Stop, coachman, stop.”
Haydn sprang out of the carriage, hurried up to the house, ascended
the steps, entered the vestibule and listened quietly at the door. A
servant approached, surveyed the strange apparition from head to foot,
and at last thundered out: “What are you doing here, sir?” “I would
like to listen a little.” “This is no place for listening; go about
your business.” Haydn pretended not to hear the abuse. The servant at
last seized him by the cloak with the words: “You have heard enough,
now pack off or I will pitch you out doors.” Haydn handed him a couple
of Kreuzer pieces. As soon as the Allegro was finished the servant
again urged him to go. Haydn wanted to hear the Adagio, and was
searching his pocket anew, when by chance the door was opened, and he
was recognized by one of the players. In an instant the hall resounded
with a loud greeting. “Haydn, Haydn,” was on every lip! The doors
were thrown open and more than twenty persons surrounded the revered
master and bore him into the salon, a part of them greeting him as an
acquaintance and the rest seeking an introduction. In the midst of the
loud acclamation, a shrill voice above them cried out: “That is not
Haydn; it is impossible. Haydn must be larger, handsomer and stronger,
not such a little insignificant man as that one there in the circle.”
Universal laughter ensued. Haydn, more astonished than any of the
rest, looked about him to see who had disputed his identity. It was an
Italian Abbe who had heard of Haydn and admired him very much. He had
mounted a table in order to see him. The universal laughter only ended
with the commencement of the Adagio but Haydn remained until the close
of the symphony.

“My only misfortune is my country life,” Haydn writes in the spring
of 1781, but he could be in Vienna two of the winter months at least,
and there it was he found the artist, who more than all others, not
excepting even Philip Emanuel Bach, influenced him and helped to raise
his fame “to the stars”--Mozart.

Their personal acquaintance first commenced in the spring of 1781, when
Mozart came to Vienna and permanently remained there. The letters of
Mozart’s father, during the journeys of 1764 and 1768, make no mention
of Haydn, and in the summer of 1773, when Mozart passed a short time in
Vienna, Haydn as usual was at Esterhaz. Mozart’s own letters however
show that even as a boy he knew and admired Haydn. He sent for his
Minuets from Italy, and also created a taste for the German Minuet
among the Italians. The actual acquaintance between these two artists,
so widely apart in years, the true foundation of which both in life
and in their works, rested above all upon that cordiality which is so
intimate a part of German life, must have brought them very closely
together. How Mozart felt towards Haydn, a statement of Griesinger’s
shows. Haydn once brought out a new quartet in the presence of Mozart
and his old enemy, the Berliner, Leopold Kozeluch, in which some bold
changes occurred. “That sounds strange. Would you have written that
so?” said Kozeluch to Mozart. “Hardly” was the reply, “but do you know
why? Because neither you nor I could have hit upon such an idea.”
At another time, when this talentless composer would not cease his
fault-finding, Mozart excitedly exclaimed: “Sir, if we were melted down
together, we would be far from making a Haydn.”

Association with the circles, in which at this golden time of music in
Vienna, Haydn’s compositions were cherished with pleasure and love, and
even with actual devotion, by artists and connoisseurs, inspired him
to accomplish something of equivalent value. As early as the autumn of
1782, he commenced to write a series of six quartets, and the Italian
dedication of them to Haydn is the most beautiful instance of unselfish
admiration that can be conceived. It was written in the autumn of 1785,
and the translation reads:

  MY DEAR FRIEND HAYDN:

  When a father sends his sons out into the wide world, he should,
  I think, confide them to the protection and guidance of a highly
  celebrated man, who by some happy dispensation is also the best
  among his friends. So to this famous man and most precious friend,
  to thee, I bring my six sons. They are, it is true, the fruit of
  long and laborious toil, but the hope which my friends hold out to
  me leads me to anticipate that these works, a part at least, will
  compensate me, and it gives me courage and persuades me that some
  day they will be a source of happiness to me. You, yourself, dearest
  friend, expressed your satisfaction with them during your last visit
  to our capital. Your judgment above all inspires me with the wish
  to offer them to you, and with the hope that they will not seem
  wholly unworthy of your favor. Take them kindly, and be to them a
  father, guide and friend. From this moment I resign all right in
  them to you, and beg you to regard with indulgence the faults which
  may have escaped the loving eyes of their father, and in spite of
  them to continue your generous friendship towards one who so highly
  appreciates it. Meantime I remain with my whole heart, your sincere
  friend.

                                                           W. A. MOZART.

He called Haydn “Papa,” and when some one spoke of his dedication,
replied: “That was duty, for I first learned from Haydn how one should
write quartets.” How Haydn with his simple modesty always bowed to
divinely inspired genius, is shown by a letter from Mozart’s father, of
the fourteenth of February of the same year, 1785, which may be found
complete in the book: “Mozart, after Sketches by his Cotemporaries,”
(Leipsic, 1880). It reads: “On Saturday evening Herr Joseph Haydn was
with us. The new quartets were played, which complete the other three
we have. They are a little easier but delightfully written. Herr Haydn
said to me: ‘I declare to you, before God and upon my honor, your son
is the greatest composer with whom I am personally acquainted. He has
taste and possesses the most consummate knowledge of composition.’”
That was truly an expression of “satisfaction,” and to such a “father”
Mozart might well entrust his “children.” He understood their merits
and character. “If Mozart had composed nothing else but his quartets
and his ‘Requiem’ he would have been immortal,” the Abbe Stadler heard
Haydn remark afterwards. During a discussion of the well-known discord
in the introduction to the C major quartet, he declared that if Mozart
wrote it so, he had some good reason for it. He never neglected an
opportunity of hearing Mozart’s music, and declared that he could not
listen to one of his works without learning something. Kelly in his
Reminiscences, tells of a quartet performance about the year 1786, in
which Haydn, Dittersdorf Mozart and Banhall took part--certainly an
unprecedented gathering. Dittersdorf, of whose virtuoso playing mention
has already been made, must have played the first violin.

In the year 1787, “Don Juan” was brought out in Prague, and as Mozart
could not entertain a proposition for a second opera, application was
made to Haydn. He wrote from Esterhaz, in December, one of the most
beautiful of all his letters. It is contained in Mozart’s Biography:
“You desire a comic opera from me,” he says. “Gladly would I furnish
it, if you desired one of my vocal compositions for yourself alone,
but if it is to be brought out in Prague, I could not serve you,
because all my operas are so closely connected with our personal circle
at Esterhaz, and they could not produce the proper effect which I
calculated in accordance with the locality. It would be different, if
I had the inestimable privilege of composing an entirely new work for
your theater. Even then, however, the risk would be great, for scarcely
any one can bear comparison with the great Mozart. Would that I could
impress upon every friend of music, and especially upon great men,
the same deep sympathy and appreciation for Mozart’s inimitable works
that I feel and enjoy; then, the nations would vie with each other in
the possession of such a treasure. Prague should hold fast to such a
dear man, and also remunerate him, for without this the history of a
great man is sad indeed, and gives little encouragement to posterity
for effort. It is for the lack of this, so many promising geniuses are
wrecked. It vexes me that this matchless man is not yet engaged by some
imperial or royal court. Pardon me if I am excited, for I love the man
very dearly.”

The above reproach was superfluous so far as Mozart was concerned, for
he had at that time been appointed chamber-composer at the imperial
court, though Haydn, being in Eisenstadt, did not know it; but without
any doubt the reproach was applicable in another case--that of Haydn
himself. The recognition of his special work had as yet made but little
progress among the professional musicians, critics and influential
circles. His letters are full of protests against this injustice and
misfortune, and the statements of Mozart, already quoted, show how just
they were. The elegant leaders of Italian fashion and Spanish etiquette
were not more likely to encourage a low-born Esterhaz Capellmeister
in uncivilized Hungary than they were the national humor, pleasantry
and vivacity which had for the first time found proper expression in
music, and the liberties which these qualities permitted, contrary
to the accepted style, were either not recognized at all, or looked
upon as mistakes. It was all the more unfortunate for him that Joseph
II was the very embodiment of this foreign manner. The well-known
Reichardt, who met the Emperor in Vienna in 1783, relates: “I thought
at least in a conversation about Haydn, whom I named with reverence,
and whose absence I regretted, we should agree. ‘I thought,’ said
the Emperor, ‘you Berlin gentlemen did not care for such trifling. I
don’t care much for it, and so it goes pretty hard with the excellent
artist.’” This in a measure is confirmed by a conversation between
Joseph and Dittersdorf, two years later: “What do you think of his
chamber-music?” “That it is making a sensation all over the world, and
with good reason.” “Is he not too much addicted to trifling?” “He has
the gift of trifling without degrading his art.” “You are right there.”

While such malicious partiality and miscomprehension must have
distressed Haydn very much, it secured for him the renewed good opinion
of Mozart and recognition of his elevated character, and he did not
refrain from giving expression to it. “It was truly touching when he
spoke of the two Haydns and other great masters. One would have thought
he was listening to one of his scholars rather than to the all-powerful
Mozart,” says Niemetscheck, speaking of Mozart’s visit to Prague.
Rochlitz also reports the following opinion which Mozart expressed:
“No one can play with and profoundly move the feelings, excite to
laughter and stir the deepest emotions, each with equal power, like
Joseph Haydn.” Such reverence must have given the master the fullest
conviction of his artistic power, for who was better qualified to
pass such judgment than such a genius? Meanwhile this judgment was
confirmed by unprejudiced hearers all over the world. As we learn from
Gyrowetz’s Autobiography, a symphony of this young master was played
in Paris as a favorite composition in all the theaters and concerts,
because it was mistaken for a work of Haydn’s. He also had to specially
protect his music from being clandestinely copied and engraved.

It is not surprising therefore to hear him say at the close of a letter
in 1787, in which he offers a London publisher the “Seven Words,” six
“splendid” symphonies, and three “very elegant” nocturnes: “I hope
to see you by the close of this year, as I have not yet received any
reply from Herr Cramer as to an engagement for myself this winter in
Naples.” The London invitation concerned the so-called professional
concerts. A year afterward, J. P. Salomon contracted with him for
concert-engagements in the Haymarket theater. Mozart writes to his
father in 1783 as follows: “I know positively that Hofstetter has twice
copied Haydn’s music,” and Haydn himself in 1787 writes to Artaria:
“Your own copyist is a rascal, for he offered mine eight ducats this
winter to let him have the ‘Seven Words.’” He justly complains that
he is not paid sufficiently for his works, and on one occasion thanks
Artaria “without end for the unexpected twelve ducats.” “I have until
now kept it from my readers that Haydn declared on the occasion of
my first visit to him he had been in straightened circumstances to
his sixtieth year,” says Dies, and he adds that in spite of all his
economy and the generosity of Prince Nicholas at his death, and thirty
years of hard toil, his entire property consisted of a small house and
five hundred florins in gold. Besides this he had about two thousand
florins in public funds which he had laid aside against a time of
need. Dies rightly attributes such penury after such industry to the
extravagance of his wife. But notwithstanding the Esterhazy goodness,
the fact remains that Haydn often found himself longing for a change.
It mattered little that he had equal fame with Gluck and Mozart. Such
a Prince should have kept the purse of a man of such sensitive and
exalted feeling well filled.

“My greatest ambition is to be recognized by all the world as the
honest man which I really am,” he writes about the year 1776, and
dedicates all the praises he had received “to Almighty God, for to
Him alone are they due.” His wish was neither to offend his neighbor
nor his gracious Prince, and above all, the merciful God. Now that
he realized the beautiful divine pleasure of reverence, and that his
unworthy situation with its constant restrictions and distress pressed
upon his artistic feeling, he longed for a change more ardently than
ever. “I had a good Prince, but at times had to be dependent on base
souls; I often sighed for release,” he writes from London in 1791.
His determination to accept the London invitation must have been very
strong, for a letter of 1781 closes: “Meanwhile I thank you very much
for the lodgings offered me.” His gratitude actually prevented him from
traveling, though he was literally besieged by his friends, and, as we
have seen, was invited from abroad. “He swore to the Prince to serve
him until death should separate them and not to forsake him though he
were offered millions,” Dies heard him say. The Prince in times of
pressing necessity allowed him to draw upon his credit, but Haydn
availed himself of this privilege as seldom as possible, and was always
satisfied with small sums.

Among impressions so varied in their nature, the letters were written
which belong to the following year and from which we must present a few
short extracts. They are addressed to Frau von Genzinger in Vienna,
the wife of a physician who was also physician in ordinary to Prince
Esterhazy. She was very intimate with our master in his later years,
for she had made his friendship in connection with his art, having
arranged symphonies of his for the piano. In reading these letters,
one truly feels the noble aspirations of Haydn’s soul. The influence
which this excellent lady had upon the poetical character of his works
is evident in the beautiful sonata whose Adagio “meant so much.” Here
indeed vibrate accords as full of life and longing as music was capable
of expressing at that time in her soft measures.

In the house of this “ladies’ doctor,” as he was universally called in
Vienna, Mozart, Dittersdorf, Albrechtsberger, afterward Beethoven’s
teacher, and Haydn, when he was in Vienna, met regularly on Sundays,
and it must have been doubly painful to him to go back to his wretched
solitude from these delightful gatherings where he could sit near
her ladyship and hear the masterpieces of Mozart played. Alas! the
separation came sooner than Haydn wished. “The sudden resolution of my
Prince to withdraw from Vienna, which is hateful to him, is the cause
of my precipitate journey to Esterhaz,” he writes in 1789. In contrast
with the other magnates, who were fond of displaying their splendor and
gratifying their tastes, and nowhere was this so true as in Vienna,
Prince Nicholas with his increasing years grew more and more unpopular
in that city. Haydn himself gives the most forcible expression to his
dissatisfaction with his surroundings.

The address: “High and nobly born, highly esteemed, best of all, Frau
von Genzinger,” shows us the style of the time, and the following
letter of February 9, 1790, tells us the whole story:

“Here I sit in my wilderness, deserted like a poor orphan, almost
without human society, sad, full of the recollections of past happy
days, yes, past, alas! And who can say when those delightful days will
return--those pleasant gatherings, when the whole circle were of one
heart and soul--all those charming musical evenings which can only be
imagined, not described? Where are all those inspired moments? All are
gone, and gone for a long time,” he writes, and it was only his native
cheerfulness that could allay this feeling of loneliness. “Wonder
not, dear lady, that I have delayed so long in writing my gratitude.
I found everything at home torn up. For three days I was uncertain
whether I was Capellmeister or Capell-servant. Nothing consoled me.
My entire apartment was in confusion. My piano, which I love so much,
was inconstant and disobedient, and it vexed instead of tranquilizing
me. I could sleep but little, my dreams troubled me so. When I dreamed
of hearing ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ a fatal north-wind awoke me and
almost blew my night-cap off my head.” In his next remarks we learn
of a composition, about which he had written a short time before to
his publisher, saying that he had in his leisure hours composed a new
capriccio for the piano, which by its taste, originality and close
finish would be sure to receive universal applause. “I became three
pounds thinner on the way,” he continues, “because of the loss of my
good Vienna fare. Alas, thought I to myself, when in my restaurant I
had to eat a piece of fifty-year-old cow instead of fine beef, an old
sheep and yellow carrots instead of a ragout and meat balls, a leathery
grill instead of a Bohemian pheasant! alas, alas, thought I, would that
I now had many a morsel which I could not have eaten in Vienna! Here,
in Esterhaz, no one asks me, ‘Would you like chocolate? Do you desire
coffee with or without milk? With what can I serve you, my dear Haydn?
Will you have vanilla or pine-apple ice?’ Would that I had only a piece
of good Parmesan cheese, so that I might the more easily swallow the
black dumplings! Pardon me, most gracious lady, for taking up your time
in my first letter with such piteous stuff. Much allowance must be made
for a man spoiled by the good things in Vienna. But I have already
commenced to accustom myself to the country by degrees, and yesterday I
studied for the first time quite in the Haydn manner.”

An event shortly after occurred which for the time greatly stimulated
his creative ability. The Princess died, and the Prince sank into such
melancholy that he wanted music every day. At this time he would not
allow him to be absent for twenty-four hours. He speaks often of his
deep distress of heart and of his many disappointments and ill-humors.
“But, thank God, this time will also pass away,” he says at the close
of a letter, in which he is looking forward to the winter. “It is sad
always to be a slave, but Providence so wills it,” he says on another
occasion. “I am a poor creature, continually tormented with hard work,
and with but few hours for recreation. Friends? What do I say? One
true friend? There are no longer any true friends, save one, oh! yes,
I truly have one, but she is far away from me; I can take refuge,
however, in my thoughts; God bless her and so order that she shall
not forget me.” “My friendship for you is so tender that it can never
become culpable, since I always have before my eyes reverence for
your exalted virtue,” he also wrote in reply to Frau von Genzinger,
concerning a letter which to his regret had been lost.

We now come to a time when the “ill-humors” ceased, and Haydn secured
a better situation, and, more than all, complete freedom. The Prince
died and crowned his generosity with the legacy of a pension of one
thousand gulden. The new Prince, Paul Anton, added four hundred gulden
more to it, so that Haydn could now live comfortably upon a stipend of
two thousand eight hundred marks. He discharged the orchestra and only
required of Haydn that he should retain the title of Capellmeister at
Esterhaz. Haydn called this position “poorly requited” and added that
he was on horseback, “without saddle or bridle,” but hoped one day or
other by his own service, “for I can not flatter or beg,” or by the
personal influence of his gracious Prince, to be placed in a higher
position. But this did not occur until a later time, and then by the
help “of his fourth Prince.” He soon removed to Vienna, and declined
the invitation of Prince Grassalkowic to enter his service. It was
not long before his affairs took a happy turn in another direction,
and in the place of rural restraint he enjoyed the widest and most
unrestricted public liberty.

The violinist, J. P. Salomon, a native of Bonn, who had played in
Haydn’s quartets long before and occupied a distinguished place in
the musical world of London, entered his room one evening and curtly
said: “I am Salomon, of London, and have come to take you away. We will
close the bargain to-morrow.” He was on his travels engaging singers
for the theatrical manager Gallini, and on his return to Cologne,
heard of the death of Prince Esterhazy. Haydn at first offered various
objections--his ignorance of foreign languages, his inexperience in
traveling and his old age; but Salomon’s propositions were so brilliant
that he wavered. Five thousand gulden, and the sale of his compositions
were something worth unusual consideration in the straightened
circumstances of a simple musician, entering upon old age. Besides, he
had plenty of compositions finished which no one knew of outside of
Esterhaz. He made his assent conditional upon the Prince’s permission
and gave no further heed to Salomon’s persuasions. Mozart himself, who
had traveled much about the world, interposed his objections with the
best intentions. “Papa” was too old. He was not fitted for the great
world. He spoke too few languages. A man of fifty-eight ought to remain
quietly among his old and sure friends. “I am still active and strong,
and my language is understood all over the world,” he replied.

The Prince did not refuse his permission, and the expenses of the
journey were advanced. Haydn sold his little house at Eisenstadt, took
the five hundred gulden which he had saved up, consigned his bonds to
his “highly cherished” Vienna friend to whom he commended his wife,
and made all his preparations for the journey which was to establish
his fame all over the world. He started Dec. 15, 1790. Mozart did
not leave his beloved “Papa” the whole day. He dined with him, and
tearfully exclaimed at the moment of separation: “We are saying our
last farewell to-day.” Haydn was also deeply moved. He was twenty-four
years older, and the thought of his own death alone occurred to him.
It was but a year later that he heard of Mozart’s death, and shed
bitter tears. “I shall rejoice in my home and in embracing my good
friends like a child,” he wrote at a later time to Frau von Genzinger,
“only I lament that the great Mozart will not be among them, if it
be true, which I hope not, that he is dead. Posterity will not find
such talent again for a century.” He was the one who was destined to
be the heir of Mozart, and it was his London visit which broadened his
intellectual horizon and gave his fancy freer development. He was then
the direct guide of Beethoven, whose sonatas, quartets and symphonies
were more closely developed and patterned upon the works which Haydn
had then written than upon Mozart’s, the marvelous beauty of whose
music was more like an inspiration from above, which could scarcely be
appropriated or imitated by his followers.

His letters to Frau von Genzinger abound in information about the
events of this journey, and, thanks to the detailed investigation of
C. F. Pohl in his little book, “Mozart and Haydn in London” (Vienna:
1867), we are now placed in full possession of them, but we shall
confine ourselves only to those details which are indispensable to a
record of Haydn’s progress.

In Munich, Haydn became acquainted with Cannabich, who had so greatly
promoted symphony performances in Germany--an acquaintance which must
have been of two-fold interest to the founder of the symphony. In Bonn,
particularly, where his music had many friends, and had been played
exceedingly often in churches, theaters, public and chamber-concerts
(see Beethoven’s Life, Vol. I), he was astonished on one occasion,
according to Dies’ narrative. Salomon took him on Christmas night to
the mass. “The first chords revealed a work of Haydn’s. Our Haydn
regarded it as an accident, though it was very agreeable to him to
listen to one of his own works,” it is said. Towards the close, a
person approached him and invited him to enter the oratory. Haydn was
not a little astonished when he saw that the Elector Maximilian had
summoned him. He took him by the hand and addressed his musicians in
these words: “Let me make you acquainted with your highly cherished
Haydn.” The Elector allowed him time for them to become acquainted,
and then invited him to his table. The invitation caused him a little
embarrassment, for he and Salomon had arranged a little dinner in
their own house. Haydn took refuge in excuses, and thereupon withdrew
and betook himself to his residence, where he was surprised by an
unexpected proof of the good will of the Elector. At his quiet command,
the little dinner had changed into a large one for twelve persons,
and the most skillful of the musicians had been invited. Could the
Elector’s court organist, Beethoven, have been among the guests? He
was at that time twenty years old, and certainly was among the most
skillful of the musicians.

Haydn writes about the remainder of the journey and his arrival in
London, to his friend in Vienna. He remained on deck during the entire
passage, that he might observe to his heart’s content that huge
monster, the sea. He might have thought with an ironical smile of the
storm in “The Devil on Two Sticks.” He was completely overwhelmed “with
the endlessly great city of London, which astonishes me with its varied
beauties and wonders,” but it still further broadened his experience to
see with his own eyes the representatives of a great free people like
those of England. His arrival had already caused a great sensation, and
for three days he went the rounds of all the newspapers. After a few
days he was invited to an amateur concert, and leaning upon the arm of
the director, passed through the hall to the front of the orchestra
amid universal applause, “stared at by all and greeted with a multitude
of English compliments.” Afterward he was conducted to a table set for
two hundred guests, where he was requested to sit at the head, but he
declined the honor, since he had already dined out, that noon, and
eaten more than usual; but in spite of this he was obliged to drink the
harmonious good health of the company in Burgundy.

This brilliancy of welcome characterized Haydn’s London visit until
its close. Both socially and as an artist he knew how to win hearts
to himself. His countryman, Gyrowetz, introduced him to fashionable
families which gave entertainments, where Haydn was the center of
attraction. His simple and cordial manner and its great contrast
with the imperious manner which the Italian artists assumed upon the
strength of their long residence, suited the English, and when he rose
from the table, seated himself at the piano and sang the cheerful
German songs, all, even the most prejudiced, circulated his fame.
Instances like that of the insulting slur of the once so celebrated,
but at that time old and conceited, Italian violinist, Giardini, who
received the announcement of his visit with the remark, “there is
nothing for me to learn from the German dog,” were rare, but Haydn
instead of being angry only laughed at his folly. In contrast with
such arrogance, he cherished genuine artists, as we know from his
association with the great organ-player, Dupuis. Sir G. Smart, so
well known to us from “Beethoven’s Life,” relates that he saw him
listening with close attention to Dupuis’ playing at St. James church,
and that when the latter came out of the chapel, Haydn embraced and
kissed him. The unanimous recognition of others’ merits was a natural
characteristic of Haydn as well as of Mozart. The newspapers had
something to say about him every day, but already that envy and malice
began, against which he, like every other one of prominence, had had
to contend from youth up. They discovered that his powers were in
their decadence, and on that account it was useless to longer expect
anything like his earlier productions. And this, too, when the Salomon
concerts had commenced and achieved the highest success, since every
new work of the master brought him new fame. The Professional Concerts,
under the direction of the violinist Cramer, who had offered him an
engagement in 1787, were his worst enemies. It was the professors, or
the professional musicians, who arranged these, and society rivalry led
them to look upon his success with an envious eye. And yet Haydn was
present at their first concert of the season which preceded the Salomon
concerts, and had complimented them upon performing his symphonies so
well without having had the opportunity of hearing them.

Salomon’s first concert met with decided success. It was of special
advantage that Haydn in his judicious way knew how to secure a
particular freedom of performance from his orchestra. He would flatter
his players and delicately mingle blame and praise. He invited the
best among them to dine, and besides all this, he took pains to
practically explain his ideas to them, so that the result, as Dies
emphatically says, was affection and inspiration. He would induce the
Italian singers themselves, who sedulously avoided every difficulty
and discord, to execute his frequently surprising modulations and
intonations. “Never, perhaps, have we had richer musical enjoyment,”
says the _Morning Chronicle_, speaking of the concert, “and the
Adagio of his symphony in D was encored--a very rare occurrence.” His
opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” for Gallini’s new theater, though nearly
completed, was not performed, as the opening of the stage was not
allowed. It has numbers of equal merit with the best that Haydn has
written, but as a whole it is modeled upon the usual Italian pattern
of separate airs. Haydn’s genius revealed itself otherwise in his own
special sphere, and except the quartets, the most of his instrumental
music which has come down to us had its origin at this time in
London, especially the twelve London symphonies. They display in the
clearest manner the increased development of his ideas and fancy, the
deepening of his thought and the rich and firm handling of instruments
which place Haydn on the same plane as Mozart and Beethoven. He had
an orchestra which in strength and skill was second to none in
the world at that time; at the same time, the efforts to produce
artistic impressions, which seize upon the mind and heart, aroused and
invigorated his large and sympathetic, if not always really musical,
audiences. It was Haydn who first created the love of pure instrumental
music in the heart of the great public of London, where vocal music
since Handel’s time had been more highly valued than elsewhere, and
this, too, not alone for its earnest, but for its humorous moods, which
were more readily appreciated by Englishmen. It was, however, his
quartets which were sought by the real friends and students of music,
and the best of these also were written in and for London.

At the end of May, Haydn attended the great Handel Festival, which
had been given every year since 1784, and in which over one thousand
musicians took part. Even the sight of the great assemblage was
brilliant and magnificent, but beyond all this, he had the opportunity
of hearing Handel’s music in its full majesty. More than twenty of
his large and minor works were performed, and the powerful personal
influence of the master dominated the performance. When the
world-renowned “Hallelujah” rose in great waves of sound, and the
thousands, with the king at their head, stood up, there was scarcely
a dry eye. Haydn, who stood near the king’s box, wept like a child,
and completely overcome, exclaimed: “He is the master of us all.” The
sublimity of the all-overmastering Eternal he never displays in his
own works. He was, so to speak, forced out of the church into life,
and never found his way back again to its sublime earnestness, but the
religious feeling and simple piety of the heart were active, living
principles in Haydn’s nature, and gave to his forms that breath of
living creation which transforms them into the “divine likeness.” The
perfect innocence and the touching and beautiful earnestness which
often appear in his works, come from the same source as Handel’s
majestic sublimity. His “Creation” is a still more convincing
illustration of this. Its origin was due to the London visit, and many
a large and important choral piece bears witness to the fact that Haydn
had now met and seen this Handel face to face. He was to him what
Sebastian Bach was to Mozart and Beethoven, whom he had not known so
well as they. On the 8th of July, 1791, after his brilliant season had
come to a close, Haydn received a special mark of distinction. The
degree of Doctor of Music was conferred upon him by the University of
Oxford. At the last festival concert, when he entered, clad in his
black silk doctor’s gown and four-cornered cap, he was enthusiastically
received. He seized the skirt of his gown, and held it up with a loud
“I thank you,” which simple expression of gratitude was greeted with
universal applause. This respect for England served to make him still
more famous. Salomon was warranted in announcing, a month later, that
they would continue their concerts in the same style as those which had
made such a success in the winter.

Meanwhile, an entirely unexpected summons to return to Esterhaz reached
him. He was expected to write the opera for a festivity at the Prince’s
court. Evidently he could not comply, for he had signed new terms of
agreement with Salomon, and thus had to encounter the Prince’s anger
for his desertion of duty.

“Alas, I now expect my discharge, but I hope that God will be gracious
and help me in some measure to efface my losses by my industry,” he
wrote to Frau von Genzinger, September 17, 1791, and this industry was
made less burdensome as he had spent the summer in the country, amid
beautiful scenery, with a family whose hearts, he writes, resemble
the Genzingers. How much must he, who was so accustomed to Nature,
have appreciated such a country visit! “I am, God be thanked, in good
health, with the exception of my customary rheumatism. I am working
industriously, and think every morning, as I walk alone in the woods
with my English grammar, of my Creator, of my family, and of all the
friends I have left behind,” he writes in his seclusion, which, as we
see, brought him the most beautiful outward and inward happiness. Added
to this was his consciousness of being free. “O, my dear gracious lady,
what a sweet relish there is in absolute liberty,” he writes again;
“I have it now in some degree; I appreciate its benefits, although my
mind is burdened with more work. The consciousness that I am no longer
a servant requites all my toil.” He realized there also a striking
confirmation of the happiness of rising “from nothing.” His landlord,
a rich banker, was so impressed with his narrative of his youthful
trials, that he once swore that he was getting on too well in the
world. He realized for the first time that he was not happy. “I have
only an abundance and I loathe it,” he exclaimed, and wished he had a
pistol that he might shoot himself, an event, however, which did not
happen, much to Haydn’s pleasure.

After his return to London he encountered exciting times, for the
Professional musicians bent all their energies to surpass the Salomon
concerts, and their public assaults had such an extended influence
that inquiries came from Vienna about the actual condition of his
circumstances. Even Mozart believed these reports and thought he must
have depreciated very much. “I can not believe it,” Haydn simply
writes, and refers him to his banker, Count Fries, in whose hands he
had placed five hundred pounds. “I am aware that there is a multitude
of envious persons in London, the most of whom are Italians, but they
can not hurt me, for my credit with the people has been settled many
years,” he says, and adds with confident feeling: “Those above them are
my support.”

As their next move, the Professionals sought to secure him for
themselves by higher offers, but he would not break his word or injure
his manager, whose outlay had been so large, by the gratification of
sordid motives. So they renewed their assaults upon his age and the
pretended decadence of his ability, and announced that they had secured
his pupil Pleyel. The latter, a neighbor and countryman of Haydn,
was at that time thirty-four years of age and twenty-five years the
younger. Mozart had expressed a favorable opinion of his talent. He
writes to his father in 1784 about Pleyel’s new quartets: “If you do
not yet know them, try to get them; it is worth the trouble. You will
at once recognize his master. It will be a good and fortunate thing for
music if Pleyel in his day is able to supply Haydn’s place for us.” He
was unquestionably innocent in the matter of the invitation to come to
London, and really made his appearance in the season of 1792.

Meanwhile, Haydn had spent two days with the Duke of York, who had
married the seventeen-year-old Princess Ulrica, of Prussia, daughter
of King Frederick William II. In 1787, her music-loving father had
sent him a ring, which he wore as a talisman, and a very complimentary
letter, for six new quartets. “She is the most charming lady in the
world, is very intelligent, plays the piano and sings very agreeably,”
writes Haydn. “The dear little lady sat near me and hummed all the
pieces, which she knew by heart, having heard them so often in
Berlin. The Duke’s brother, the Prince of Wales, played the ’cello
accompaniment very acceptably. He loves music exceedingly, has very
much feeling but very little money. His goodness, however, pleases me
more than any self-interest,” he says in conclusion. The Prince also
had Haydn’s portrait painted for his cabinet.

Many more personal attentions of a similar kind were paid him. One
Mr. Shaw made a silver lid for a snuff-box which Haydn had given him,
and inscribed thereon, “Presented by the renowned Haydn.” His very
beautiful wife--“the mistress is the most beautiful woman I have ever
seen,” he writes in his diary--embroidered his name in gold upon a
ribbon which he preserved even when a very old man. It was at this
time he received with bitter tears the news of Mozart’s death. “Mozart
died December 5, 1791,” he simply writes in his diary, but we know
the beautiful remark he made to his friend in Vienna who had so often
played Mozart’s masterpieces for him. At a later period he said in a
similar strain to Griesinger: “Mozart’s loss is irretrievable. I can
never forget his playing in my life. It went to the heart.” In the year
1807, speaking to other musical friends in Vienna, he said with tears
in his eyes: “Pardon me, I must always weep at the name of my Mozart.”
Indeed, at this time he must have deeply felt the contrast between the
brilliancy of this genius and the darkness of his own outer life in
these declining years. And yet he felt all the more the importance of
preserving the respect for German art. In the midst of such times as
these Pleyel arrived. “So there will now be a bloody harmonious war
between master and scholar,” he writes, but on the other hand they
were frequently together. “Pleyel displayed so much modesty upon his
arrival that he won my love anew. We are very often together, which is
to his credit, and he knows how to prize his father. We will share our
fame alike, and each one will go home contented,” he says. He too must
have longed for his Austrian home, or he would have acted differently
towards “Papa.”

One of the newspapers rightly understood the situation. “Haydn and
Pleyel are offset against each other this season, and both parties are
earnest rivals, yet as both belong to the same rank as composers, they
will not share the petty sentiments of their respective admirers,” says
the _Public Advertiser_, and so it eventuated, though not until after
many painful experiences for both the men, for with the others’ plans
there was mingled very much of personal animosity. The Professionals
announced twelve new compositions of Pleyel’s. Early in 1792 Haydn
writes to Vienna: “In order to keep my word and support poor Salomon,
I must be the victim, and work incessantly. I really feel it. My eyes
suffer the most. My mind is very weary, and it is only the help of God
that will supply what is wanting in my power. I daily pray to Him, for
without His assistance I am but a poor creature.” The best hours of the
day he was compelled to devote to visits and private musicals. “I have
never written in any one year of my life as much as in the last,” he
says, and yet his works show all the charming freshness of youth, with
the contrast of greater depth and richer illustration. He found time to
arrange twelve Scotch songs, and he says, “I am proud of this work, and
flatter myself that it will live many years after I am gone.” But they
made a complete failure, and the publishers therefore made a subsequent
application to Beethoven.

The professional concerts at this time again had the precedence, and
it is a fair illustration of their rivalry, that at the commencement
they brought out a symphony of his and sent him a personal invitation.
“They criticise Pleyel’s presumption very much, but I admire him
none the less. I have been to all his concerts, and was the first to
applaud him,” he writes to Vienna. In his first concert he also brought
out a symphony of Pleyel’s. His own new symphony, notwithstanding
he thought the last movement was weak, made “the deepest impression
upon his audience.” The Adagio had to be repeated, and the entire
work was performed again in the eighth and eighteenth concerts, by
“request.” For the second concert he wrote a chorus, “The Storm.” It
was the first which he had composed with English text, and it met with
extraordinary success, because in it were united the most striking
qualities of his art, skill, and good humor. As he himself writes, he
gained considerable credit with the English in vocal music and this was
destined to have a decisive result.

At the sixth concert, March 23, 1792, the symphony with the kettle-drum
effect was given. Haydn says of it: “It was a convenient opportunity
for me to surprise the public with something new. The first Allegro
was received with innumerable bravas, but the Andante aroused the
enthusiasm to the highest pitch. ‘Encore, encore,’ resounded on every
side, and Pleyel himself complimented me upon my effects.” Gyrowetz
visited him after its completion to hear it upon the piano. At the
drum-passage, Haydn, certain of its success, with a roguish laugh,
exclaimed: “There the women will jump.” Dies gives the current version
of the original cause of the work as follows: The ladies and gentlemen
in the concerts, which took place after the late English dinners, often
indulged in a nap, and Haydn thought he would waken them in this comic
manner. The English call the symphony, “The Surprise,” and among all
the twelve, it is to this day, the favorite.

How deeply Haydn’s music impressed his English hearers, and how
clearly it appears that they for the first time recognized the soul
of music, disclosing to the popular mind its mysterious connection
with the Infinite, is evident from a strange entry in Haydn’s diary. A
clergyman, upon hearing the Andante of one of his symphonies, sank into
the deepest melancholy, because he had dreamed the night before its
performance, that the piece announced his death. He immediately left
the assemblage, and took to his bed. “I heard to-day, April 25, that
this clergyman died,” writes Haydn. It is the elementary revelations of
the deepest feeling and individual spiritual certitude that speak to us
in Haydn’s music, and they have, so to speak, the most powerful grasp
upon our individual existence. Indeed, they explain the irresistible
and immeasurable influence of music. It is the image of Infinity
itself, while the other arts are only the images of its phenomena. Its
influence is so much more powerful and impressive than that of the
other arts, because, as the philosopher would say, they represent only
the shadow of things, while music represents their actual existence. A
people so pre-eminently metaphysical and serious in character as the
English, must have taken this simple, but deeply thoughtful Haydn and
his symphonies into their very hearts. How could they have awarded the
palm to any one living at that time over him? He had himself thoroughly
comprehended the deep-lying genius of this nation, and in the province
of _his_ genius he could lead it to a point its own nature could not
reach. Every one of his compositions written for London, as well as
those subsequently, show this, and many of his utterances illustrate
his esteem for the English public. “The score was much more acceptable
to me because much of it I had to change to suit the English taste,”
he writes in March, 1792, when his long wished-for symphony in E major
had been forwarded to him from Vienna. And it should be remembered
among all these events that Handel had written all his oratorios in and
for London, and Beethoven’s Ninth was “the symphony for London.”

In May, 1792, Haydn had a benefit concert, at which two new symphonies
were performed, and this, like the last concert, met with such favor,
that Salomon offered the public an extra concert with the works that
had been most admired during the season. “Salomon closed his season
with the greatest eclat,” says the _Morning Herald_, and Pohl simply
and appropriately adds: “Haydn was in all his glory, beloved, admired
and courted. His name was the main stay of every concert-giver.
Painters and engravers immortalized their art by his picture.” One
such, a highly characteristic profile portrait, by George Dance, is
given with the English edition (1867) of the “Musical Letters.”[A] It
confirms the description of his appearance, which has already been
given, in every feature.

Before his departure, he had another experience, which clearly
indicates and reveals the source of music in his nature. At the yearly
gathering of the Charity Scholars at St. Paul’s cathedral, he heard
four thousand children sing a simple hymn. “I was more touched by this
devout and innocent music than by any I ever heard in my life,” he says
in his diary, and he adds in confirmation of it: “I stood and wept like
a child.”

With this impression were unconsciously associated the most active
memories of his own home, from which he had been absent so long. The
home-image never rises so vividly in our hearts as when we see these
little ones who are so particularly the active genii of the house and
home. He stated, as the principal reason for his return, his wish to
enjoy the pleasure of his fatherland; and he wrote in December, 1791,
that he could not reconcile himself to spend his life in London, even
if he could amass millions. Other artists have also borne testimony
to the influence of the Festival alluded to above. In 1837, Berlioz
attended it with the violinist Duprez and John Cramer. “Never have
I seen Duprez in such a state; he stammered, wept, and raved,” says
Berlioz. The latter, in order to get a better view of the whole scene,
donned a surplice, and placed himself among the accompanying basses,
where, more than once, “like Agamemnon with his toga,” he covered his
face with his music sheets, overcome with the sight of the children and
the sound of their voices. As they were going out, Duprez exclaimed
in delight, speaking in Italian instead of French, in his excitement:
“Marvelous! marvelous! The glory of England!”

Haydn might well have thought the same, for he had already made a deep
impression upon the nation, and touched its heart with the kindly
feelings of life.

It was his last great experience “in the vast city of London,” and
to Haydn’s inner nature it gave in brief all that he had given and
all that was due to him. It was the first time he had seen a vast
multitude of human beings in a great and eagerly listening throng, and
it expanded his own nature, which had been restricted, to the widest
bounds, without in any way modifying its power. He had experienced the
full measure of English humor, manifesting itself in those relations
of personal affection which the “beautiful and gracious” Mrs. Schroter
had expressed for him and his “sweet” compositions--an affection which
she herself regarded as “one of the greatest blessings of her life,”
and which had bound her to him in an indissoluble attachment. “My
heart was, and still is, full of tenderness for you, yet words can
not express half the love and affection which I feel for you. You are
dearer to me every day of my life,” she says at another time. That it
was the deep principle and character of his life which had aroused
such a passionate affection in the already aged lady, these words
confess: “Truly, dearest, no tongue can express the gratitude which I
feel for the unbounded delight your music has given me.” The fact that
this loving esteem was meant for Haydn himself, makes it all the more
beautiful.

Such were the satisfying and grateful feelings which filled his soul
at the moment of parting. Outwardly and inwardly blessed, he returned
to Vienna in July, 1792, and not two years later, he was again on the
Thames.




CHAPTER IV.

THE EMPEROR’S HYMN--THE CREATION AND THE SEASONS.

1793-1809.

  Criticism at Home--His Relations to Beethoven--Jealousy of the
    Great Mogul--His Second London Journey--The Military Symphony--His
    Longings for Home--Great Popularity in England--Reception by the
    Royal Family--His Gifts--Return to Vienna--Origin of the Emperor’s
    Hymn--The Creation and the Seasons--Personal Characteristics--His
    Death--Haydn’s place in Music.


On his journey back, in July, 1792, Haydn again visited Bonn. The
court musicians gave him a breakfast at the suburb of Godesburg, and
Beethoven laid before him a cantata, probably the one written on the
death of Leopold II, to which the master gave special attention and
“encouraged its author to assiduous study.” The arrangements were
unquestionably made at that time, by which the young composer afterward
became Haydn’s scholar, “for Beethoven even then had surprised every
one with his remarkable piano playing.”

Since the death of Gluck and Mozart, Haydn had been recognized in
Vienna, and indeed in all Germany, as the first master. In the spring
of 1792 the _Musikalische Correspondenz_ declared that his services
were so universally recognized, and the influence of his numerous
works was so effective, that his style appeared to be the sole aim of
composers, and they approached more closely to perfection the nearer
they approached him. The fame he had won in England was no longer
doubted or disputed. Every account spoke of him in a manner that
betrayed a feeling of national pride, says Dies, and all the more
was this the case after he had brought out his six new symphonies in
the Burg Theater, on the 22nd and 23rd of December, to which very
naturally, eager attention was given in Vienna. His success was of
great advantage to that same Tonkunstler Societat which had once
treated him so shabbily. He was elected a member, exempt from dues, but
it was never necessary to make any claim upon him.

The “country of wealth” had so materially improved his fortune that he
bought a little house in a “retired, quiet place” in the suburb of
Gumpendorf, which his wife, with the utmost naivete, had picked out
for herself, when she should become a widow, but which became his own
resting-place in his old age. He added a story to it afterward and
lived there until his death, surviving his wife about nine years.

Composition and instruction still remained his regular quiet work. The
lessons at this time, in the case of one scholar at least, were pretty
troublesome. “Haydn has announced that he shall give up large works
to him, and must soon cease composing,” one writes from Bonn, at the
beginning of 1793, referring to Beethoven. It was a characteristic of
the old master that he advised the young scholar, three of whose trios
(op. 1) had been played before him and about which he had said many
complimentary things, not to publish the third, in C minor. He feared
that the rest of the music, in contrast with such “storm and stress,”
would appear tame and spiritless, and that it would rather hurt than
help him in the estimation of the public. This made a bad impression
upon the easily suspicious Beethoven. He believed Haydn was envious
and jealous and meant no good to him. Thus it appears, that from the
very beginning _all_ confidence in the instruction was destroyed, and,
besides this, it had little prospect of success, since the still more
revolutionary youth had gone far beyond his fame-crowned senior in his
innovations. Still he remained until the end of the year 1793, and
the greater youth never forgot what he owed the great master. “Coffee
for Haydn and myself,” and other observations of a like character
in Beethoven’s diary, show, that besides the matter of instruction
there was a personal friendly intercourse between them. Ostensibly it
discontinued when Haydn’s second journey offered a fitting pretext,
but, as a matter of fact, he was at that time a scholar of Schenk, who
is mentioned in Mozart’s biography. He had very often complained to
other musicians that he did not get on well with his studies, since
Haydn was occupied altogether too much with his work and could not
devote the requisite attention to him. Schenk, who had already heard
Beethoven extemporize at one of his associates’, the abbe Gelinek,
met him one day, as he was returning from Haydn, with his music
under his arm, glanced it over and found that several errors remained
uncorrected. This decided Beethoven’s change and choice.

Notwithstanding all this, it was reported in Bonn from Vienna, in the
summer of 1793, that the young countryman made great progress in art,
and this was to Haydn’s credit, who, with the help of his Fux and
Philip Emanuel Bach, was able to collect and arrange the well acquired
theoretical knowledge of the “genial stormer,” in a practical manner,
and thereby substantially raised him to his own rank, although he did
not comply with the understood wish of his teacher that he would place
“Scholar of Haydn” upon the sonatas (op. 2), dedicated to him, because,
as he declared in justification of his refusal, that he had not learned
anything from him. This remark refers to the higher instruction in
composition, where their ideas differed. Yet in 1793, he went with
Haydn to Eisenstadt, and he had even intended to go with him the
next winter to England. Beethoven’s pupil, Ries, also expressly says
that Haydn highly esteemed Beethoven, but as he was so stubborn and
self-willed, he called him “the great Mogul.” How entirely free from
envy Haydn was towards younger artists at this time, is shown by a note
to his godson, Joseph Weigl, afterward the composer of the “Schweizer
Familie.” “It is long since I have felt such enthusiasm for any music
as yesterday in hearing your ‘Princess of Amalfi,’” he writes to him,
January 11, 1794. “It is full of good ideas, sublime, expressive, in
short, a masterpiece; I felt the warmest interest in the well deserved
applause that greeted it. Keep a place for an old boy like me in your
memory.” He had always helped to open the way for the young scholar
into the best musical circles of Vienna, and now that the teacher was
again about to depart, the scholar could seek his own fortune without
going astray.

The preparation of the necessary works for this second journey had
been the too constant occupation of the old man. It must have been
undertaken however for other reasons than these; for Haydn knew that
he must have something to live upon, even in his simple manner, in
his unemployed old age. It was not right that a self-willed young
beginner, who paid nothing for his instruction, as he had no other
means of support except his salary from the Elector, should take
up too much of his valuable time. It was enough to impart the main
points of instruction without giving any attention to little and
merely incidental errors which would disappear of themselves in time.
We know Haydn’s views of such things, and there was a characteristic
illustration of them in his later days. The contrapuntist,
Albrechtsberger, Beethoven’s subsequent teacher, who, according to
the latter’s witty statement, at best only created musical skeletons
with his art, insisted that consecutive fourths should be banished
from strict composition. “What is the good of that?” said Haydn.
“Art is free and should not be tied down with mechanical rules. Such
artifices are of no value. I would prefer instead that some one would
try to compose a new minuet.” Beethoven actually did this, and called
it, in his op. 1, Scherzo. “Haydn rarely escaped without a side cut,”
says Ries of Beethoven--but however all this may be, we may not only
imagine but we know that this opposition between the two artists, which
arose from their different temperaments, made no real difference in
Beethoven’s respect for Haydn.

We now come to the second London journey. This time the Prince
interposed objections. He desired indeed no personal service, but
he had a pride in Haydn and his fame, and thought he had secured
sufficient glory. He may also have thought that a man sixty years old
ought not to expose himself to the hardships of a distant journey, and
the persecutions of envy. Haydn appreciated his good intentions, but he
still felt strong, and preferred an active life to the quiet in which
his Prince had placed him. Besides, he knew that the English public
would still recognize his genius, and he had engaged with Salomon to
write six more symphonies, and had many profitable contracts with
various publishers in London. The Prince at last gave way and allowed
Haydn to go, never to see him again, for he died shortly afterward,
and Haydn had the fourth of the Esterhazys for patron and master, upon
whose order he composed a requiem while in London as a tribute to the
departed.

On the 19th of January, 1794, the journey began. While at Scharding,
an incident happened which clearly shows Haydn’s good humor. The
customs officers asked what his occupation was. Haydn informed them,
“A tone-artist;” (Tonkunstler), “What is that?” they replied. “Oh!
yes, a potter,” (Thonkunstler), said one. “That’s it,” averred Haydn,
“and this one,” (his faithful servant, Ellsler) “is my partner.” At
Wiesbaden, he realized with much satisfaction the greatness of his
fame. At the inn his Andante with the kettle-drum effect, which had
so quickly become a favorite, was played in a room near by him. Dies
says: “He regarded the player as his friend, and courteously entered
the room. He found some Prussian officers, all of whom were great
admirers of his works, and when he at last disclosed himself they would
not believe he was Haydn. ‘Impossible! impossible! you, Haydn! a man
already so old! this does not agree with the fire in your music.’ The
gentlemen continued so long in this strain that at last he exhibited
the letter received from his king, which he always carried in his
chest for good luck. Thereupon the officers overwhelmed him with their
attentions, and he was compelled to remain in their company until long
after midnight.”

This time Haydn lived very near to his friend and admirer, Frau
Schroter, yet we learn nothing further of their relations to each
other. The leading accounts of this second visit have not been kept,
but in reality they repeat the events of the first. His name this time
was free from detraction. They agreed that his power had increased,
and that one of the new symphonies was his best work. His name was in
request for every concert-programme, and the repetition of his pieces
was as frequent as during his first visit. “In geniality and talent who
is like him?” says the _Oracle_, March 10, 1794.

Sir G. Smart in 1866, then in his ninetieth year, and who was a violin
player with Salomon, relates a neat story of this time, to Pohl, the
biographer. At a rehearsal there was need of a drummer. Haydn asked:
“Is there any one here who can play the kettle-drum?” “I can,” quickly
replied young Smart, who never had had a drum stick in his hand, but
thought that correct time was all that was necessary. After the first
movement, Haydn went to him and praised him, but intimated to him that
in Germany they required strokes which would not stop the vibrations
of the drum. At the same time he took the sticks and exhibited to the
astonished orchestra an entirely new style of drumming. “Very well,”
replied the undaunted young Smart, “if you prefer to have this style,
we can do it just as well in England.” Haydn’s first drum lessons with
his cousin Frankh, in Hamburg, will readily occur to the reader.

On the 12th of May, 1794, the Military Symphony, another favorite among
all Haydn’s friends, was performed for the first time. It overflows
with genial merriment, and often with genuine frolicsome humor. Not
long afterward, the news reached him that the new Prince Nicholas
wished to reorganize the orchestra at Eisenstadt, and had appointed him
anew as Capellmeister. Haydn received this news with great pleasure.
This princely house had assured him a living, and, what was of still
more importance, had given him the opportunity of fully developing his
talent as a composer. His profits in London far exceeded his salary
in the Fatherland, and a persistent effort was made to keep him in
England, but he decided as soon as his existing engagements were
concluded to return to his old position.

A secret but very powerfully operating reason may also have been the
same which to-day actuates that greatest of natural tone artists,
Franz Liszt--wherever he may go, he always returns to Germany. It is
the spirit of music itself which permeates every fiber of our life, in
the earnest feeling of which we bathe and find health. Notwithstanding
the attractive performance of the orchestra and of the virtuosi, the
most of whom were Germans, the master did not find London and England
peculiarly musical. What he thought of the theater is recorded in his
diary: “What miserable stuff at Saddler’s Wells! A fellow screamed
an aria so frightfully and with such ridiculous grimaces that I
began to sweat all over. N. B. He had to repeat the aria! _O che
bestie!_” There yet remained much of the English jockey style in these
musico-theatrical performances, and the value of music was reckoned
upon another standard than that which belongs to intellectual things.
Thus we may readily believe, though Haydn himself pretended not to
hear it, that the rough mob in the gallery, hissing and whistling,
cried out, “Fiddler, Fiddler,” when the orchestra rose to honor him,
an artist and a foreigner, upon his first appearance in the theater.
After these not very agreeable experiences of English musical taste,
Haydn looked upon it as a comical proof of his reputation, when, as
Griesinger relates, Englishmen would approach him, measure him from
head to foot, and leave him with the exclamation, “You are a great man.”

Still another circumstance shows how absolutely he preferred his
Austrian home. In August, 1794, he visited the ruins of the old
abbey of Waverly. “I must confess,” he writes in his diary, “that
every time I look upon this beautiful ruin, my heart is troubled as
I think that all this once occurred among those of my religion.” His
continual abode among people of the Protestant confession, so opposed
to his own Catholicism, disturbed those feelings and ideas of the
simple man in these later years which had swayed his inner nature for
two generations. This is a matter of personal feeling, and does not
affect that toleration which in all religious matters characterized
his beautiful nature. Finally, political freedom, which had made
England so powerful, was not agreeable to his primitive manner of life.
While he says not a word of the excellencies of the life of a great
free people, he several times alludes to the rude noises and frantic
shouts of the “sweet mob” (suessen Poebels) in London festivals and
at the theaters. Socially considered, notwithstanding the political
freedom, the barriers that separated classes were just as distinct
and insurmountable as they are to-day. Nowhere in the world, indeed,
is custom more formal--reason enough in itself to make him love his
Fatherland all the more fervently.

His fame in England, however, continually increased. He was already
called a genius inferior to no one, and this, too, in the same
connection with the mention of a performance of Hamlet, which he had
attended. His sportive humor allied him very closely to the great
English tragic poet: if not so deep and so quickly moving to tears,
he still derived his power doubtless from the same simple source of
feeling. He himself mentions one instance of his roguish humor while
in London, according to Dies and others. He was intimately acquainted
with a German who had acquired boundless dexterity in the violin
technique, and was addicted to the common practice of always making
effects in the extremely high tones. Haydn wished to see if he could
not disgust him with this dilettantist weakness and induce a feeling
for legitimate playing. The violinist often visited one Miss Janson,
who played the piano very skillfully, and was accustomed to accompany
him. Haydn wrote a sonata for them, called it “Jacob’s Dream,” and sent
it anonymously to the lady, who did not hesitate to perform it with the
violinist, as it appeared to be an easy little work. At first it flowed
easily through passages which were begun in the third position of the
violin. The violinist was in ecstasies. “Very well written. One can
see the composer knows the instrument,” he murmured. But in the close,
instead of lowering to a practical place, it mounted to the fifth,
sixth, and at last to the seventh position. His fingers continually
crowded against and through each other like ants. Crawling around
the instrument and stumbling over the passages, he exclaimed with
the sweat of misery on his brow: “Who ever heard of such scribbling?
The man knows nothing about writing for the violin.” The lady soon
discovered that the composer meant to illustrate by these high passages
the heavenly ladder which Jacob saw in his dream, and the more she
observed her companion stumbling around unsteadily upon this ladder,
reeling and jumping up and down, the thing was so comical that she
could not conceal her laughter, which at length broke out in a storm,
from which we may fancy that it cured the dilettante of his foolish
passion. It was not discovered until five or six months afterward who
the composer was, and Miss Janson sent him a gift.

Haydn’s influence upon the public during his second visit to London is
observed even in still higher degree. Salomon, indeed, said, though
somewhat figuratively, yet openly, to “proud England,” that these Haydn
concerts were not without their influence upon the public interests,
since they had created a permanent taste for music. In the spring of
1795, Haydn saw the royal pair several times. The first time it was at
the house of the young and musical Duchess of York, whom the Prince
of Wales had introduced to him. The Hanoverian George III. was already
prepossessed in Handel’s favor. Philip Emanuel Bach writes of him in
1786: “The funniest of all is the gracious precautions that are taken
to preserve Handel’s youthful works with the utmost care.” But on this
evening, when only Haydn’s works were played by the royal orchestra,
under Salomon’s direction, and of course, excellently, he showed great
interest in them also. “Dr. Haydn,” said he, “you have written much.”
“Yes, Sire, more than is good.” “Certainly not; the world disputes
that.” The King then presented him to the Queen, and said he knew that
Haydn had once been a good singer and he would like to hear some of
his songs. “Your Majesty, my voice is now only so large,” said Haydn,
pointing to the joint of his little finger. The King smiled, and Haydn
sang his song, “Ich bin der Verliebteste.” Two days afterward, there
was a similar entertainment at the residence of the Prince of Wales,
who required his presence very often.

He related to Griesinger that upon that occasion he directed twenty-six
musicians, and the orchestra often had to wait several hours until the
Prince rose from the table. As there was no compensation for all this
trouble, when Parliament settled up the bills of the Prince, he sent in
an account of one hundred guineas, which was promptly paid. Haydn was
not very well pleased about the matter, although upon the occasion of
his first acquaintance in 1791, he had written that the Prince loved
music exceedingly, had very much feeling, but very little money, and
that he desired his good will more than any self-interest. Still he
had, as his will shows, many poor relatives, who had claims upon him,
and was it right that he should lose at the hands of the princely
son of the richest land in the world, upon whom he had bestowed such
faithful artistic services? While yet in London he met with a bitter
proof of what he was to endure on account of these relatives. He was
compelled to immediately settle the debt of a married nephew, who was
the major-domo of the Esterhazy family, and we see by his will that
these relatives had squandered more than six thousand florins of his
through his great kindness. His remarkable goodness was as much an
obligation in his estimation, as nobility or genius in others, and he
never allowed any possible means of practicing it to escape without
some good cause.

He was repeatedly invited to the Queen’s concerts, and was also
presented by her with the manuscript of Handel’s “Savior at the Cross.”
As Germans, both she and the King were eager to keep him in England. “I
will give you a residence at Windsor for the summer,” said the Queen,
“and then” with a roguish glance at the King, “we can some times have
tete-a-tete music.” “O, I am not jealous of Haydn,” said the King, “he
is a good and noble German.” “To maintain that reputation is my highest
ambition,” quickly exclaimed Haydn. After repeated efforts to persuade
him, he replied that he was bound by gratitude to the house of his
Prince, and that he could not always remain away from his fatherland
and his wife. The King begged him to let the latter come. “She never
crosses the Danube, still less the sea,” replied Haydn. He remained
inflexible on this point, and he believed that it was on this account
that he received no gift from the King, and that no further interest
was manifested in him by the court. The real and deeper reason for his
decision we have already learned.

The concerts of the year 1795 were laid out upon a more magnificent
scale than before, as political events upon the continent had disturbed
the interest in them in various ways. Haydn, Martini, Clementi, and
the most distinguished players and singers from all countries--London
had never witnessed more brilliant concert-schemes. Haydn opened the
second part of every concert with a symphony. The _Oracle_ says of one
of these: “It shows the fancy and style of Haydn in forms that are not
at the command of any other genius.” After he gave his benefit concert,
May 4, 1795, upon which occasion the Military Symphony and the Symphony
in D major, the last of the twelve London series, were played, he
wrote in his diary: “The hall was filled with a select company. They
were extremely pleased and so was I. I made this evening four thousand
florins. It is only in England one can make so much.” These pleasant
experiences gave him the idea of writing a work of the style which
was very popular and greatly esteemed in England--the oratorio. He
had begun one such with English text, which was unfinished, however,
because he could not express himself with sufficient feeling in that
language.

He was the recipient of many gifts at this time, among them a cocoanut
cup with a silver standard from Clementi; a silver dish, a foot in
width, from the well-known Tattersall, for his help in the work of
improving the English church music; and even nine years later, the
influences of his London visit were apparent in a gift sent to him of
six pairs of woolen stockings, upon which were embroidered six themes
of his music, like the Andante from the drum symphony, the “Emperor’s
Hymn,” etc. He was the first, since Handel’s time, who had universally
and permanently succeeded with his music in London, and had impressed
his listeners with an earnest and realizing sense of the real meaning
of music. He was the first, for when Mozart, and afterward Beethoven,
were known in London, a new dynasty began. Now Haydn ruled as firmly
as Handel had previously. He had established his pre-eminence by
the immense number of works of all kinds he had written. Griesinger
gives a list in his own catalogue comprising in all seven hundred
and sixty-eight pages, among which, besides the opera of “Orpheus”
and the twelve London symphonies, whose subjects are given in the
volume, “Haydn in London,” there are six quartets, eleven sonatas, and
countless songs, dances and marches--indeed, there is no end to them.
The work that made his sway absolute was “The Creation,” the text of
which had been given to him by Salomon while still in London, where he
had acquired “much credit in vocal music,” and the crowning close, so
to speak, of his London visit was made at home.

In August, 1795, Haydn returned to Vienna by way of Hamburg and
Dresden, as the French held possession of the Rhine. This time his
journey had been very profitable. His second visit had added an equal
amount to the twelve thousand florins made in his first, and he also
retained his publisher’s royalties in England as well as in Germany and
Paris. He could now contemplate his old age without any apprehensions
since he had a certainty to live upon, though a modest one. “Haydn
often insisted that he first became famous in Germany after he had been
in England,” says Griesinger. The value of his works was recognized,
but that public homage, which surpassing talent usually enjoys, first
came to him in old age, and for this reason now we call him “our
immortal Haydn.” On the 18th of December, 1795, he gave a concert
again in Vienna with his new compositions, but this time for his own
personal profit. Three new symphonies were played. He was overwhelmed
with attentions and his receipts were more than a thousand guldens.
Beethoven assisted in this concert, a proof of the good feeling
existing at this time between teacher and scholar.

One day the Baron Van Swieten, who is well known in connection with
the time of Beethoven and Mozart, and whom he had known for twenty
years or more, said to him: “We must now have an oratorio from you
also, dear Haydn.” “He assisted me at times with a couple of ducats
and sent me also an easy traveling carriage on my second journey
to England,” says Haydn. The Emperor’s librarian, Van Swieten, was
secretary of an aristocratic society, whose associates illustrated
the real meaning of that term, as they comprised the entire musical
nobility of Europe--Esterhazy, Lobkowitz, Kinsky, Lichnowsky,
Schwartzenberg, Auersperg, Trautmannsdorf and others. They had been
accustomed for years to bring out large vocal works in the beautiful
library-hall of the imperial city. Handel was the chosen favorite, and
Mozart had arranged for these concerts the “Acis and Galatea,” “Ode
to St. Cecilia,” “Alexander’s Feast” and “The Messiah.” They did not
possess or they did not yet know anything of this style in Germany, for
Sebastian Bach had not been discovered in Vienna. Haydn’s “Ruckkehr
des Tobias,” like Mozart’s “Davidde penitente,” was written in a style
which belonged to the opera, and the “Requiem” was already at hand and
had been performed, but they were the only things of their class. On
the other hand the “Zauberfloete” had drawn thousands to the theater,
year in and year out. Why could they not hear this characteristic pure
German music in the concert-hall? In this work there was, so to speak,
a specimen of the “Creation” with animals, beings and the Paradise on
every hand, in which the loving pair, Pamina and Tamino, are solemnly
tested. How much more varied appear the life-pictures in Lidley’s
“Creation”--a poem which Haydn had placed in Van Swieten’s hands! The
society, without doubt upon Swieten’s suggestion, guaranteed the sum
of five hundred ducats and the latter made the translation of the
English text. Three years later the most popular of all oratorios, “The
Creation,” was completed.

Meanwhile, with the exception of the Mass, which was the product of the
war-time of 1796, in which the Agnus Dei commences with kettle-drums
as if one heard the enemy already coming in the distance, an artistic
event occurred which, if not reaching the limits of musical art as
such, yet in the most beautiful manner fulfilled its lofty mission of
welding together the conceptions and feelings of all times and peoples,
and directing them to a high mission--it was the composition of “God
Save the Emperor Francis.”

This song has its origin in the revolutionary agitations of the
year (1796), brought over from France, which determined the Imperial
High Chancellor, Count Saurau, to have a national song written which
should display “before all the world the true devotion of the Austrian
people to their good and upright father of his country, and to arouse
in the hearts of all good Austrians that noble national pride which
was essential to the energetic accomplishment of all the beneficial
measures of the sovereign.” He then applied to our immortal countryman,
Haydn, whom he regarded as the only one competent to write something
like the English “God Save the King.” In reality this minister aroused
the noblest German popular spirit, and established it in a beautiful
setting, far exceeding his restricted purpose at the outset. Haydn
himself had already arranged the English national hymn in London. More
than once, upon the occasion of public festivals, it had afforded him
the opportunity of learning in the most convincing manner the strong
attachment of the English to their royal house, the embodiment of
their State. He had also preserved his own devotion to his Fatherland
through many a sharp test. His long continued stay in a foreign land
had only served to fully convince him what his Austrian home and
Germany were to him. Above all, the music represents not merely his own
most original utterance of the people, and he, who had already learned
the Lied in the childhood of the people itself, had been the first to
introduce it in a becoming and all-joyous manner in the art of music.

Thus his full heart was in this composition, and the commission came to
him, as it were, direct from his Emperor. Far more than “God Save the
King,” this Emperor’s Hymn is an outburst of universal popular feeling.
The “Heil dir im Siegerkranz,” or any special Fatherland-song, could
not be the German people’s hymn, and the “Deutschland, Deutschland
uber Alles” has only become so, because it was set to Haydn’s melody,
which accounts for its speedy and universal adoption as the people’s
hymn. The German people realize in it the spirit of their own life,
in its very essence, as closely as music can express it. In reality,
there is no people’s hymn richer, or, we might say, more satisfying
in feeling, than this. The “God Save the King,” so fine in itself, of
which Beethoven said he must sometime show the English what a blessing
they had in its melody, appears poor and thin in contrast with such
fullness of melodic rhythm and manifold modulation. In the second
verse the melody produces with most beautiful effect that mysterious
exaltation which enthralls us when in accord with the grandest impulses
of the people, and the responsive portion of the second part--the
climax of the whole--carries this exalted feeling, as it were, upon
the waves of thousands and thousands of voices to the very dome of
Eternity. The construction of the melody is a masterpiece of the first
order. Never has a grander or more solid development been accomplished
in music with such simple material. “God Save the Emperor Francis,” as
a worldly choral, stands by the side of “Eine feste Burg.” It reveals
the simplest and most popular, but at the same time in the most graphic
manner, the characteristic mental nature of our people, and in like
manner has compressed it within the narrowest compass, just as music
for centuries has been the depository of the purest and holiest
feelings of the Germans. Had Haydn written nothing but this song, all
the centuries of the German people’s life would know and mention his
name. We shall yet hear how much he esteemed the song himself. Not long
afterward he revealed his musical “blessing” in the variations upon its
theme in one of his best known works, the so-called “Kaiser Quartet.”

“On the 28th of January, 1797, Haydn’s people’s hymn received the
imprimatur of Count Saurau,” says a chronology of his life. The people,
however, set its real seal of universal value upon this song when
they affectionately and enthusiastically appropriated it as their
own property. “On the 12th of February, the birthday of the Emperor
Francis, Haydn’s people’s hymn was sung in all the theaters of Vienna,
and Haydn received a handsome present in compensation,” it is further
related. We recognize him in all his modesty in the following note to
Count Saurau: “Your Excellency! Such a surprise and mark of favor,
especially as regards the portrait of my good monarch, I never before
received in acknowledgment of my poor talent. I thank Your Excellency
with all my heart and am under all circumstances at your command.”
To this day there is generally no patriotic festival in all Germany
at which this song is not sung or played as an expression of genuine
German popular or patriotic feeling. It is a part of our history as
it is of our life. Richard Wagner’s “Kaiser March” is the first that
corresponds with it as an expression of popular feeling. In its poesy
it is a hymn in contrast with that mere Lied, and, notwithstanding
its most powerful and soaring style as a composition, it is, like the
Marseillaise, a set scene which arouses the national pride of our time
in a glittering sort of way; but Haydn’s song, though belonging to
the more primitive era of the nation, still remains as the expression
of our most genuine national feeling. Finally it accomplishes a
most important work in its special province of art. It reflects the
heartiness of the German people in a grand composition, as Mozart
had already done in the “Magic Flute,” and is set in a crystalline
vase, as it were, for the permanent advantage of art. This is the
historical significance of Haydn’s creation. Together with Mozart’s
“Magic Flute,” it marks the consummate triumph of German music, and
has, like the deep purpose of the preceding epoch of the North German
organ-school, especially Sebastian Bach, gradually opened the way to
the transcendent dramatic creations of Richard Wagner.

“Haydn wrote ‘The Creation’ in his sixty-fifth year, with all the
spirit that usually dwells in the breast of youth,” says Griesinger. “I
had the good fortune to be a witness of the deep emotions and joyous
enthusiasm which several performances of it under Haydn’s own direction
aroused in all listeners. Haydn also confessed to me that it was not
possible for him to describe the emotions with which he was filled as
the performance met his entire expectation, and his audience listened
to every note. ‘One moment I was as cold as ice, and the next I seemed
on fire, and more than once I feared I should have a stroke.’” How
deeply he infused his own spirit into this composition is shown by
another remark: “I was never so pious as during the time I was working
upon ‘The Creation.’ Daily I fell upon my knees and prayed God to
grant me strength for the happy execution of this work.”

One may see that his heart was in his work. “Accept this oratorio with
reverence and devotion,” wrote his brother Michael, himself no ordinary
church-composer. The most remarkable characteristic of the work is
not, that his choruses rise to the Infinite, as his brother expresses
it. Handel has accomplished this, and Bach also, with inexpressibly
greater majesty and spiritual power. The heartfelt nature of his music,
its incomparable naturalness, its blissful joyousness, its innocence
of purpose, like laughter in childhood’s eyes--these are the new
and beautiful features of it. A spring fountain of perennial youth
gushes forth in melodies like “With Verdure Clad,” “And Cooing Calls
the Tender Dove,” “Spring’s Charming Image.” And how full of genuine
spirit is some of the much talked of “painting” in this work. The
rising of the moon, for instance, is depicted so perceptibly that it
almost moves us to sadness. How well Haydn knew the value of discords
is shown by the introductory “Chaos!” How his modulations add to the
general effects, as for instance, in the mighty climax in the finale
of the chorus, “The Heavens are telling the Glory of God!” The stately
succession of triads in the old style never fails at the right moment.

This new development of the spontaneous emotions of life, from the
fascinating song of the nightingale to the natural expression of
love’s happiness in Adam and Eve, could only come from a heart full of
goodness, piety, and purity of thought. It is a treasure which Austria
has given to the whole German people out of its very heart, and is as
meritorious as our classical poetry, and as permanent. This enduring
merit of the work transcends all that the esthetic or intellectual
critics can find to criticise in the painting of subjects not musical.
The ground tone is musical throughout, for it comes from the heart of
a man who regards life and the creation as something transcendently
beautiful and good, and therefore cleaves to his Creator with
child-like purity and thankful soul.

“The Divinity should always be expressed by love and goodness,” Dies
heard him say very expressively. This all-powerful force in human
existence is the source of the lovely fancies which float about us in
the melodies of the “Creation,” enchanting every ear and familiar to
every tongue. A criticism made at that time upon Haydn’s measures is to
the effect that their predominant characteristics are happy, contented
devotion, and a blissful self-consciousness of the heavenly goodness.
This is the fundamental trait in all of Haydn’s music, particularly
of the “Creation.” He was always certain that an infinite God would
have compassion upon His infinite creation, and such a thought filled
him with a steadfast and abiding joyousness. That Handel was grand in
choruses, but only tolerable in song, he says himself; and this is a
proof of his deep feeling for natural life and its individual traits.
Still, on the other hand, he guards himself in these pure lyric works
from dramatic pathos, and is right when he leaves this to the stage.
He acknowledges in his exact recognition of the various problems and
purposes of art, that Gluck surpassed others in his poetic intensity
and dramatic power. He, himself, with his artistic sense, could sketch
the ideal types of nature, inspire them with the breath of life,
give them the sparkle of the eye, and the inward gracious quality
of his own true, loving and soulful nature. This places him above
even his renowned predecessors, contemporaries and followers--Graun,
Hasse, Philip Emanuel Bach, Salieri, Cherubini, and the rest, and in
this province of art exalts him to the height of the classic. Many of
these melodies will certainly live as long as German feeling itself,
particularly among youth and the people whose manhood ever freshly
renews itself.

The scope and style of the work were also in consonance with its
performance. It was first given with astonishing success at the
Schwartzenberg Palace, and then, March 19, 1799, at the Burg Theater,
and brought him in, according to Dies, four thousand florins. A year
later, Beethoven’s very picturesque and attractive Septet was played
for the first time at the Schwartzenberg and much admired. “That is my
Creation,” Beethoven is said to have remarked at that time. In fact,
the form and substance of the “Creation” melodies are manifest in it,
but he has gained the power of developing them with greater effect; and
yet Beethoven composed one Creation piece, which was unquestionably
the result of Haydn’s work--the ballet, “Creations of Prometheus.” The
following conversation occurred between the two composers not long
afterward: “I heard your ballet yesterday; it pleased me very much,”
said Haydn. (It was in the year 1801 that the work was performed.)
Beethoven replied: “O, dear Papa, you are very good, but it is far from
being a ‘Creation.’” Haydn, surprised at the answer and almost hurt,
said, after a short pause: “That is true. It is not yet a ‘Creation,’
and I hardly believe that it will ever reach that distinction,”
whereupon they took leave of each other in mutual embarrassment.

If the prejudices of the old master on this occasion against the
conceited “Great Mogul” appear to be somewhat too actively displayed,
we see him on the other hand in all his modesty, in a letter to
Breitkopf and Haertel, the publishers of the _Allgemeine Musikalische
Zeitung_: “I only wish and hope, now an old man, that the gentleman
critics may not handle my ‘Creation’ too severely nor deal too hardly
with it,” he wrote, in sending them the work in the summer of 1799.
“They may find the musical grammar faulty in some places, and perhaps
other things also, which I have been accustomed for many years to
regard as trifles. But a true connoisseur will see the real cause as
quickly as myself, and willingly throw such stumbling stones one side.
This is, however, between ourselves, or I might be accused of conceit
and vanity, from which my heavenly Father has preserved me all my life.”

In the same letter he writes: “Unfortunately my business increases with
my years, and yet it almost seems as if my pleasure and inclination to
work increase with the diminishing of my mental powers. Oh, God! how
much yet remains to be done in this glorious art, even by such a man
as I. The world pays me many compliments daily, even upon the spirit
of my last works, but no one would believe how much effort and strain
they cost me, since many a time my feeble memory and unstrung nerves
so crush me down that I fall into the most melancholy state, so that
for days afterward, I am unable to find a single idea until at last
Providence encourages me. I seat myself at the piano and hammer away,
then all goes well again, God be praised.” Griesinger speaks of another
method which, he employed in his old age to arouse himself to renewed
labor: “When composition does not get on well, I go to my chamber, and,
with rosary in hand, say a few Aves, and then the ideas return,” said
Haydn.

What further remains? We have spoken of the Kaiser Quartet, and we
know that there were several other pieces, among them the op. 82,
which has only two movements. “It is my last child,” said he, “but it
is still very like me.” As a Finale, he appended to it, in 1806, the
introduction of his song, “Hin ist alle meine Kraft” (“Gone is all my
power”), which he also had engraved as a visiting card in answer to
friends who made inquiries about his condition. In a letter to Artaria,
in 1799, he also speaks of twelve new and very charming minuets and
trios. His principal composition, however, was a second oratorio,
which the Society before spoken of desired, after the success of the
“Creation,” and for which Van Swieten again translated the text. It was
the “Seasons,” after Thomson.

“Haydn often complained bitterly of the unpoetical text,” says
Griesinger, “and how difficult it was for him to compose the ‘Heisasa,
Hopsasa, long live the Vine, and long live the Cask which holds it,
long live the Tankard out of which it flows.’” He was frequently
very fretful over the many picturesquely imitative passages, and, in
order to relieve the continual monotony, he hit upon the expedient of
representing a drinking scene in the closing fugue of the “Autumn.” “My
head was so full of the nonsensical stuff that it all went topsy-turvy,
and I therefore called the closing fugue the drunken fugue,” he said.
He may have been thinking of the scene he witnessed at the Lord Mayor’s
Feast in London, where “the men, as was customary, kept it up stoutly
all night, drinking healths amid a crazy uproar and clinking of
glasses, with hurrahs.”

He especially disliked the croaking of the frogs and realized how much
it lowered his art. Swieten showed him an old piece of Gretry’s in
which the croak was imitated with striking effect. Haydn contended that
it would be better if the entire croak were omitted, though he yielded
to Swieten’s importunities. He wrote afterward, however, that this
entire piece, imitating the frog, did not come from his pen. “It was
urged upon me to write this French croak. In the orchestral setting
the wretched idea quickly disappears, and on the piano it can not be
done. I trust the critics will not treat me with severity. I am an old
man and liable to make mistakes.” At the place “Oh! Industry, O noble
Industry, from thee comes all Happiness,” he remarked that he had been
an industrious man all his life, but it had never occurred to him to
set industry to music. Notwithstanding his displeasure, he bestowed
all his strength upon the work in the most literal sense, for shortly
after its completion, he was attacked with a brain-fever from which
he suffered torments, and during which his fancies were incessantly
occupied with music. A weakness ensued which constantly increased.
“The ‘Seasons’ have brought this trouble upon me. I ought not to have
written it. I have overdone,” he said to Dies.

The imperious Swieten, who thought he understood things better than
the teacher and professor, annoyed him very much. He complained of
the aria where the countryman behind his plow sings the melody of
the Andante with the kettle-drum, and wanted to substitute for it a
song from a very popular opera. Haydn felt offended at the request,
and replied with just pride: “I change nothing. My Andante is as
good and as popular anyhow as a song from that opera.” Swieten took
offense at this, and no longer visited Haydn. After a lapse of ten or
twelve days, actuated by his overmastering magnanimity, he sought the
haughty gentleman himself, but was kept waiting a good half hour in an
ante-room. At last he lost his patience and turned to the door, when he
was called back and admitted. He could no longer restrain his passion,
and addressed the Director as follows: “You called me back at just the
right time. A little more and I should have seen your rooms to-day for
the last time.” As we think of the “Great Mogul,” and the scene with
Goethe at Carlsbad, we feel, especially from a social point of view,
that a full century lies between Haydn and Beethoven. Art was become of
age and with it the artist. Haydn himself had helped open the way to an
expression of the deeper value of our nature, and brought it, as he
did pure instrumental music, to a higher standard of merit. Swieten had
already personally experienced Haydn’s anger. That epistolary complaint
about the “frog-croak” had certainly not been made public from anything
of his doing, but yet it was very sincerely intended. Swieten made him
experience his displeasure for a long time afterward, but there is
nowhere any indication that he took it specially to heart.

The first performance of the “Seasons” took place April 24, 1801.
Opinions were divided about the work. At this time occurred the
meeting of Haydn with his scholar, Beethoven, and the conversation
about the “Prometheus.” “Beethoven manifested a decided opposition
to his compositions, although he laughed repeatedly at the musical
painting, and found special fault with the littleness of his style.
On this account the ‘Creation,’ and the ‘Seasons’ would many a time
have suffered had it not been that Beethoven recognized Haydn’s higher
merits,” relates his scholar, Dies. Haydn himself expressed the
difference between his two oratorios very nicely. At a performance of
the “Seasons,” the Emperor Francis asked him to which of the two works
he gave the preference. “The Creation!” answered Haydn. “And why?” “In
the ‘Creation’ the angels speak and tell of God, but in the ‘Seasons’
only peasants talk,” said he. “In his mouth there is something of the
Philistine,” said Lavater of Haydn’s face. In comparison with the
ideal types of the “Creation” melodies, we find again in the “Seasons”
the melodious and modulatory effects of the good old times, and the
humor itself is home-made. Notwithstanding this, there is much of
the genuine Haydn geniality and freshness in this his last work, and
the tone-painting is much in the style of the “Creation.” In these
two oratorios of Haydn, and in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” we constantly
recognize the remote precursors of the powerful musical painting in
Richard Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen.”

From this period Haydn’s biography is no longer the record of his
creative power, but of his outer life, though his fame continually
increased. In 1798 the Academy of Stockholm, and in 1801 that at
Amsterdam, elected him to their membership. In the year 1800, copies
of the “Creation” were circulated in Europe, and the musicians of the
Paris opera, who were the first to perform it, sent him a large gold
medal with his likeness on it. “I have often doubted whether my name
would survive me, but your goodness inspires me with confidence, and
the tribute with which you have honored me, perhaps justifies me in the
belief that I shall not wholly die,” he replied to them. The Institut
National, the Concert des Amateurs and the French Conservatory, also
sent him medals. In 1804 he received the civic diploma of honor from
the city of Vienna, while the year before, in consideration of the
performance of his works for the benefit of the city hospitals, a
gold medal had been presented him. These concerts brought in over
thirty-three thousand florins, so great was Haydn’s popularity at
that time. In 1805 the Paris Conservatory elected him a member, which
was followed by election to the societies of Laybach, Paris and St.
Petersburg.

He was thoughtful of his end, and in 1806 made his will, which is
characterized by many beautiful and humane features. No one at his
home, or in its immediate neighborhood, was forgotten, and there were
very many in the list which may be found in the “Musical Letters.”
It closes: “My soul I give to its all-merciful Creator; I desire my
body to be buried in the Roman Catholic form, in consecrated ground.
For my soul I bequeathe No. 1, ‘namely,’ for holy masses twelve
florins.” “I am of no more use to the world; I must wait like a child
and be taken care of. Would it were time for God to call me to Him,”
he said to Griesinger. The agreeable change to this retired life in
his quiet little house, for his wife was no longer living, showed
him in what respect, friendship and love he was held, both by visits
and letters. A striking proof of the source from which his creations
arose is his letter of 1802 to distant Rugen, where his “Creation” had
been performed with piano accompaniment. “You give me the pleasing
assurance, which is the most fruitful consolation of my old age, that
I am often the enviable source from which you and so many families,
susceptible to true feeling, obtain pleasure and hearty enjoyment in
their domestic life--a thought which causes me great happiness,” he
writes to those musical friends. “Often, when struggling with obstacles
opposed to my works--often, when strength failed and it was difficult
for me to persevere in the course upon which I had entered--a secret
feeling whispered to me, ‘there are few joyful and contented people
here below; everywhere there is trouble and care; perchance your labor
sometime may be the source from which those burdened with care may
derive a moment’s relief.’”

He no longer cared much for his youthful works. “Dearest Ellsler: Be
so good as to send me at the very first opportunity the old symphony,
called ‘Die Zerstreute,’ as Her Majesty, the Empress, expresses a
desire to hear the old thing,” he humorously writes to Eisenstadt in
1803. He composed nothing more after this time, although he sent twelve
pieces to Artaria in 1805, and thought the old Haydn deserved a little
present for them, though they belonged to his younger days.

In the spring of 1804, C. M. Von Weber writes: “I have spent some time
with Haydn. The old man is exceedingly feeble. He is always cheerful
and in good humor. He likes to talk of his adventures, and is specially
interested in young beginners in art. He gives you the impression of a
great man, and so does Vogler (the abbe), with this difference, that
his literary intelligence is much more acute than Haydn’s natural
power. It is touching to see full grown men approach him, call him
‘papa,’ and kiss his hand.” At this time also, he received a letter
from Goethe’s friend, Zelter, at Berlin, in which he wished Haydn
could hear with what “repose, devotion, purity and reverence,” his
choruses were sung at the Sing Akademie. “Your spirit has entered
into the sanctuary of divine wisdom. You have brought down fire from
heaven, to warm our earthly hearts, and guide us to the Infinite. O,
come to us! You shall be received as a god among men.” Thus writes with
enthusiastic rapture this dry old master mason, wedded to forms, who
could nevertheless appreciate the special quality of Haydn’s music--its
popular and simple humor. Griesinger tells us how he regarded flattery.
A piano player began in this wise: “You are Haydn, the great Haydn.
One should fall upon his knees before you. You ought to live in a
splendid palace, etc.” “Ah! my dear sir,” replied Haydn, “do not speak
so to me. You see only a man to whom God has granted talent and a good
heart. It went very hard with me in my young days, and, even at that
time, I wearied myself with the struggle to preserve my old age from
the cares of life. I have my comfortable residence, enough to eat and a
good glass of wine. I can dress in fine cloth, and, if I wish to ride,
a hackney coach is good enough for me.”

For the thorough quiet of his life at this time he was indebted to his
last Prince, more than to any other. “The friends of harmony often
flatter me and bestow excessive praise upon me. If my name deserves
commendable distinction, it dates from that moment when the Prince
conceded larger scope to my liberty,” he said to Dies, when the latter
asked him how he could, in addition to his regular service, have
written two oratorios. The family of his illustrious patron frequently
visited him, and, in order to spare his feelings as much as possible,
they personally brought him the news of the death of his beloved
brother, Johann, who had also been in their service. In 1806, the
Prince increased his compensation fully six hundred gulden, so that he
could enjoy still more comfort. His excellent servant, Ellsler, father
of the famous danseuse, took most faithful care of him. He had such
a feeling of affectionate reverence for Haydn, that many a time when
he was fumigating the sick chamber, he would stop before his master’s
picture and fumigate it. Tomaschek, at that time a young musician from
Prague, who is mentioned in the work “Beethoven, according to the
description of his Cotemporaries,” visited him in the summer of 1808,
and has given us a very detailed picture of his style and appearance.

“He sat in an arm-chair. A prim and powdered wig with side locks,
a white collar with golden buckle, a richly embroidered white
waistcoat of heavy silk stuff, a stately frill, a state dress of
fine coffee-brown material, embroidered ruffles at the wrist, black
silk knee breeches, white silk hose, shoes with large curved silver
buckles over the instep, and upon the little table standing on one
side, near his hat, a pair of white leather gloves--such were the
items of his dress upon which shone the dawn of the 17th (18th?)
century,” says Tomaschek. To this we may add Griesinger’s remark:
“When he expected company, he placed his diamond ring on his finger,
and ornamented his attire with the red ribbon to which the Burgher
medal was attached.” “The tender feelings inspired by the sight of the
fame-crowned tone-poet disposed me to sadness,” continues Tomaschek.
“Haydn complained of his failing memory, which compelled him to give
up composition altogether. He could not retain an idea long enough
to write it out. He begged us to go into the next room and see his
souvenirs of the ‘Creation.’ A bust by Gyps induced me to ask Haydn
whom it represented. The poor man, bursting into tears, moaned rather
than spoke, ‘My best friend, the sculptor Fischer; O, why dost thou
not take me to thyself?’ The tone with which he said it pierced me to
the heart, and I was vexed with myself for having made him mournful.
At sight of his trinkets, however, he grew cheerful again. In short,
the great Haydn was already a child in whose arms grief and joy often
reposed together.”

The 27th of March witnessed one of the grandest displays of respect
Haydn had ever experienced. “The old man at all times loved his
fatherland, and he set an inestimable value upon the honors he
received in it,” so Dies begins an account of the performance of the
“Creation” in Italian, which took place in this year (1808), under
Salieri’s direction. On alighting from the Prince’s carriage, he was
received by distinguished personages of the nobility, and--by his
scholar Beethoven. The crowd was so great that the military had to keep
order. He was carried, sitting in his arm-chair, into the hall, and
was greeted upon his entrance with a flourish of trumpets and joyous
shouts of “long live Haydn.” He occupied a seat next his Princess,
the Prince being at court that day, and on the other side sat his
favorite scholar, Fraulein Kurzbeck. The highest people of rank in
Vienna selected seats in his vicinity. The French ambassador noticed
that Haydn wore the medal of the Paris Concert des Amateurs. “Not alone
this, but all the medals which have been awarded in France you ought
to have received,” said he. Haydn thought he felt a little draft. The
Princess threw her shawl about him, many ladies following her example,
and in a few moments he was covered with shawls. Eibler, Gyrowetz and
his godson, Weigl, were also present. Poems by Collin and Carpani,
the adapter of the text, were presented to him. “He could no longer
conceal his feelings. His overburdened heart sought and found relief in
tears,” continues Dies. “He was obliged to refresh himself with wine to
raise his drooping spirits.” When the passage, “And there was Light,”
came, and the audience broke out into tumultuous applause, he made a
motion of his hands towards Heaven and said, “it came from thence.” He
continued in such an agitated condition that he was obliged to take
his leave at the close of the first part. “His departure completely
overcame him. He could not address the audience, and could only give
expression to his heartfelt gratitude with broken, feeble utterances
and blessings. Upon every countenance there was deep pity, and tearful
eyes followed him as he was taken to his carriage.”

“It was as if an electric fire flowed through Haydn’s veins, so
powerfully had the events of that day excited his spirits,” says
Dies, speaking of a visit to him eight days afterward. But Tomaschek
declares: “The tremendous applause which was given to the ‘Creation’
soon cost the old man his life.” We are now perceptibly approaching
that event, and yet he was permitted to live to experience still
another honor--the brilliant success of his scholar, Beethoven, in the
grand concert given in December of that same year.

“As Haydn’s illness increased, Beethoven visited him less frequently,”
says Van Seyfried, and he adds, with a correct knowledge of the
circumstances, “chiefly from a kind of reserve, since he had already
struck out upon a course which Haydn did not entirely approve.”
Notwithstanding this, the amiable old man eagerly inquired after his
Telemachus, and often asked: “What is our great Mogul doing?” Above
all things else, well defined formalism in artistic work suited him,
like that of Cherubini, who, after repeated visits, begged for one
of his scores upon the occasion of his departure from Vienna, in the
spring of 1806. “Permit me to call myself your musical father and
you my son,” said Haydn, and Cherubini “burst into tears.” In 1788,
Cherubini heard for the first time, in Paris, a Haydn symphony, and was
so greatly excited by it, that it forcibly moved him from his seat. “He
trembled all over, his eyes grew dim, and this condition continued long
after the symphony was ended,” it is said. “Then came the reaction. His
eyes filled with tears, and from that instant the direction of his work
was decided.” He could all the more easily come to an understanding
with the old “papa,” as he had declared with reference to the “Leonora
overture,” brought out this year, he could not, on account of the
confused modulations, discover the key note.

In characteristic fashion, neither Dies nor Griesinger devote more than
a word to Haydn’s relations to Beethoven, and yet the quartets op. 18,
had appeared some time before, and were admired in Vienna by the side
of Haydn’s and Mozart’s. “Fidelio,” and the first symphonies had also
met with success. The Fifth and Sixth were brought out in the concert
of December, 1808, and surely friends told him of the powerful works
of the new master, who was really “thoughtful, sublime, and full of
expression,” and it could only increase Haydn’s own fame as the creator
of this kind of music. He himself was now too old to rightly appreciate
the character of a Beethoven, who represented an entirely new world.

He occupied the long and often tedious time with prayers and
reminiscences of his old adventures, particularly of those days in
England, which he cherished as the happiest of his life. He had a
particular little box, which was filled with his gifts from potentates
and musical societies. “When life is at times very irksome, I look upon
all these and rejoice that I am held in honor all over Europe,” he
said to Griesinger. Then he would occupy himself with the newspapers,
go through the little house accounts, entertain himself with the
neighbors and the servants, particularly with his faithful Ellsler,
play cards with them in the evening, and was very happy if he won a
couple of kreutzers. Music was a trouble to him at last, and there
is a very remarkable illustration of this in connection with his
“Kaiserlied,” “I am actually a human piano,” he said to Dies in 1806.
“For several days, an old song, ‘O Herr, wie lieb ich Dich von Herzen’
is played in me. Wherever I go or stay, I hear it above all else, but
when it torments me and nothing will deliver me from it, if only my
song, ‘God save the Emperor,’ occurs to me, then I am easier. It cures
me.” “That does not surprise me. I have always considered your song
a masterpiece,” replied Dies. “I have always had the same opinion,
though I ought not to say it,” said Haydn. During this mentally as well
as physically weak condition of the old man, then in his 77th year,
occurred the Austrian war of Freedom of 1809. “The unhappy war crushes
me to the earth,” he complained with tearful eyes. “He was continually
occupied with thoughts of his death during his last year, and prepared
himself for it every day,” says Griesinger. In April of that year he
read his will to his dependents, and asked them if they were satisfied.
They thanked him with tearful eyes for his kind provision for their
future. On the 10th of May, while engaged in dressing, the sound of
a cannon-shot was suddenly heard in the near suburb of Mariahilf. A
violent shudder overcame him. After three more shots, he fell into
convulsions. Then he rallied all his strength and cried out: “Children,
fear not. Where Haydn is, nothing can happen to you.” In fact, during
the next fourteen days he pursued his customary manner of life, only it
was noticed after the actual occupation by the French, he maintained a
severe aspect, which he managed to forget while he played his favorite
composition, “The Emperor’s Hymn.” As he had long been accustomed to
see distinguished foreigners, and had received men like Admiral Nelson
and Marshal Soult, he in like manner accepted visits from several
of the French officers, one of whom he received while enjoying his
afternoon rest in bed. It was the last visit. He was Sulemy, a French
captain of hussars. He sang to the master, whom he so greatly revered
that he would have been contented if only to see him through the
key-hole, the aria “In Native Worth,” and so beautifully that Haydn
burst into tears, sprang up and embraced him with kisses. On the 26th
of May he played his “Kaiserlied” three times in succession, with an
expression that surprised himself. He died May 31st, 1809, and passed
away in an unconscious state. His funeral ceremonies were very simple,
on account of the war-time, yet the French authorities noticed his
death in a very respectful manner. Eleven years later his remains were
taken to Eisenstadt.

Haydn’s works, according to a catalogue made by himself in 1805, which
however is not complete, consist of 118 symphonies, 83 quartets, 19
operas, 5 oratorios, 15 masses, 10 small church-pieces, 24 concertos
for various instruments, 163 (?) pieces for the bariton, 44 sonatas,
42 songs, 39 canons, 13 songs for several voices, 365 old Scotch songs
and numerous five-and-nine-part compositions in various instrumental
forms--truly, a genuine fruitfulness of the creative spirit. “There
are good and badly brought up children among them, and here and
there a changeling has crept in,” said he. There could have been no
more suitable epitaph for him than “Vixi, Scripsi, Dixi,” though he
earnestly declared, “I was never a rapid writer, and always composed
with deliberation and industry.” Above all things, it commends his
works to the connoisseur that they in good part have the enduring
form. “The record of Haydn’s life is that of a man who had to struggle
against manifold obstacles, and by the power of his talent and untiring
effort worked his way up, in spite of them, to the rank of the most
prominent men of his profession,” Griesinger truly says. He also makes
a just estimate of his works as follows: “Originality and richness of
ideas, genial feeling, a fancy dominated by close study, versatility
in the development of simple thoughts, calculation of effects by the
proper division of light and shade, profusion of roguish humor, the
easy flow and free movement of the whole.” Were one to add to these
the specially prominent characteristic of his music, it would be
the distinct German character of his works which on the one hand is
reflected in refreshing heartiness and naturalness, and on the other
in spirited humor; and which essentially embodies the earnestness and
loftiness of those two older Germans, Bach and Handel, and founded
that era in which German instrumental music achieved the mastery
of the world. In form as well as in substance, Haydn created the
artistic pattern of the symphony and the quartet, and, never let it be
forgotten, was the one who from his genuine nature and his love of the
people, evolved the first German National Hymn.


THE END.




FOOTNOTE:

[A] [This portrait, copied from the original, will be found in the
frontispiece of this volume.--TRANSLATOR.]




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  This book does not use umlauts in German words, except in the case of
    _Händel_ in the chapter descriptions.

  Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.

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