H. F. P.

JOSEPH HAYDN

_Servant and Master_

_By_

HERBERT F. PEYSER

When Mendelssohn first heard Haydn’s “Grand Organ Mass” he found it

“scandalously merry.” Now, this work, composed at Eszterháza in 1766,

was by no means a mature effort and it might have been reasonable to

ascribe its exuberance to the high spirits of a young man of uncommonly

slow artistic development. But the fact is that, virtually to the end of

his days, Haydn did not outgrow a joyfulness rooted in an unfaltering

optimism of soul. This is not to say that his creative inspiration and

originality did not enormously deepen and ramify and, particularly in

his later years, foreshadow in startling fashion some of the most

influential romantic devices of the nineteenth century. Yet his heart

preserved unchanged that serene geniality of his youth. As much as

anything else his churchly compositions disclose this trait, and even

his later masses are distinguished by a good deal of that “merriment”

which shocked Mendelssohn and not a few others.

“I don’t know how to do it otherwise,” he once told his friend, the poet

Carpani, when the question of his treatment of the mass came up. “I have

to give what is in me! When I think of God, my heart is so full of joy

that the notes fly from me as from a spindle. And as God has given me a

joyful heart He will surely pardon me if I serve Him cheerfully!” With

these words he set about revising that selfsame “scandalously jolly”

Mass of 1766, making it even more “scandalous” by the addition of some

cheery wind instrument parts. Having finished a work and signed it, he

would almost unfailingly add a pious inscription, such as “Soli Deo

Gloria”, “Laus Deo” or “In Nomine Domini”.

One of the outstanding authorities on Haydn today, Dr. Karl Geiringer,

alludes to the “deep religious sense, stubborn tenacity of purpose and a

passionate desire to rise in the world” as qualities which could be

found in all Haydn’s ancestors, “combined with a great pride in good

craftsmanship, a warm love of the soil and a healthy streak of

sensuality.” Certainly, his boyhood was not calculated to make of him an

incorrigible optimist had not this quality been bred in his bones.

Rohrau, the little town in which he was born, is an unattractive place

in a flat and marshy country, where the frequently overflowing Leitha

River forms a border between Austria and Hungary. The houses are low,

built of clay and roofed with thatch, which often catches fire in the

hot, dry summers. Dr. Geiringer tells that Haydn’s house was burned in

1813, 1833 and 1899, but always restored so carefully that few but

specialists could tell the difference. The place was probably no worse

than other neighboring cottages and farms; yet we are told that

Beethoven, in his last illness, being shown a picture of it, exclaimed:

“To think that such a great man should have been born in so poor a

home!” while some years later, Liszt, on catching sight of it, burst

into tears.

[Illustration: Haydn’s birthplace at Rohrau-on-the-Leitha, on the

Austro-Hungarian border.]

Haydn’s father, Mathias Haydn, was born in the nearby town of Hainburg;

his antecedents were hard-working, honest men, farmers, vinegrowers,

millers, wheel-wrights. Of musicians or artists there was not one among

them. Mathias was a wheel-wright and wagon-builder, like his forebears.

When he finished his apprenticeship he set out on a trip, after the

tradition of a journeyman, and went, we are told, as far as

Frankfurt-on-the-Main. On his wanderings he bought himself a harp.

Someone taught him to play it (he could not read a note of music)

sufficiently to accompany himself in his favorite folk-tunes, which he

sang “in a pleasant tenor voice”. In 1727 he settled in Rohrau, though

he remained a member of the Hainburg guild of wheel-wrights. It is

possible that he chose the unattractive market town in place of the more

imposing and picturesque Hainburg because Maria Koller lived in Rohrau.

Maria was a cook in the employ of the Counts of Harrach, the lords of

Rohrau. She appears to have been a clever culinary artist (Dr. Geiringer

says she “had to handle such delicacies as turtles and crayfish and had

an abundance of material at her disposal.” We are told for example, that

something like 8000 eggs, 200 capons and 300 chickens were delivered

annually to the castle by the inhabitants of Rohrau as part of their

duties to their patron.) At any rate, in 1728, she married the

wagon-maker, Mathias Haydn, and brought her husband a dowry of 120

florins and an “honest outfit.” The couple was by no means what could be

called “poor” (in spite of Beethoven’s pathetic exclamation and Liszt’s

tears!), but Maria Haydn saw to it that ends met, as they had to,

considering there were twelve children (of whom half died in infancy).

Moreover she was a model housewife and had inherited a deeply religious

strain. It was her fondest wish to see her great son become a Catholic

priest rather than prefer “the irresponsible life of a musician.” She,

alas, did not live to witness his first artistic successes. As for

Mathias, who was very adequately paid for doing all sorts of odd jobs

for the Counts of Harrach, his wife had the satisfaction of seeing him

succeed her father in the judicial office of “Marktrichter.” He was

“responsible for the good conduct of the population, kept a sharp

look-out for adultery and gambling; saw that people went to church and

did not break the Sunday rest ... while every Sunday morning at 6 he had

to report to the steward of Count Harrach” (Geiringer). He had a wine

cellar, farmland and cattle. He and his wife were of Austro-German

origin, not Hungarians or Croats.

Franz Joseph Haydn (his family called their children by their second

names—hence the famous brother, Johann Michael, has come down into

history as Michael Haydn) was born on March 31, 1732, the second child

of the Haydn couple. In only one respect did he show himself different

from his paternal and maternal ancestors—at an astonishingly early age

“Sepperl” (Austrian diminutive for Joseph) manifested musical talent.

This talent took the form of a gift for singing, a lovely voice and an

amazingly correct intonation, not to mention a sense of rhythm which

disclosed itself in various ways. If he had no skill in playing any kind

of instrument (though he greatly wished to imitate his father’s

performances on the harp) he would find himself a couple of sticks and

by means of these try to “play” the violin, as he had seen the Rohrau

schoolmaster do. The wonder of the neighbors became aroused, and the

more “Sepperl” gave signs of other than simply manual abilities the more

ardently his mother prayed that heaven might make him a teacher or,

better still, a priest. For the last, the boy actually displayed a

predisposition. The child had a streak of piety in him which remained

with the man to the end.

* * *

One day a cousin of Mathias, a certain Johann Mathias Franck, came over

from Hainburg. Franck seemed a person sent by Providence to further

Maria Haydn’s wishes. He was a school official, as well as precentor of

the Church of St. Philip and St. James. At once he noticed “Sepperl’s”

musical inclinations and told the parents they would be wise to allow

him to take the boy to Hainburg, where he could be more thoroughly

schooled than in Rohrau. Naturally, he was ready to supply the

youngster’s bed and board (for which, he assumed, his cousin Mathias

would be willing to pay). The good Maria hesitated. “Sepperl” was not

yet six and though he would not be far away she felt uncertain how soon

or how often she might see her boy. And what of those holy orders?

Franck brushed the objections aside; the boy should have care and

understanding, not to forget an education unobtainable in a village.

Moreover, if “Sepperl” were eventually to take holy orders his musical

training would be most helpful.

The die was cast! The barely six year old lad left his father’s roof,

never to return, save for a most brief and infrequent visit. “Sepperl’s”

mother was right. To all intents, the boy had left his family forever.

Yet throughout his life Haydn harbored the tenderest feelings for his

mother and never reproached her for permitting him to leave her. “She

had always given the most tender care to his welfare”, he told his

intimates when he was an old man. And Karl Geiringer, in his beautiful

Haydn biography, recounts how, in 1795, “when the then world-famous

composer visited Rohrau to see the monument erected in his honor by

Count Harrach, he knelt down and kissed the threshold of the humble

cottage he had shared with his parents for less than six years.”

Impressions crowded on “Sepperl” in Hainburg. He had numerous

opportunities to assist Franck in his miscellaneous and seemingly

unending tasks in the school house, on the organ bench, in conducting

the singers and instrumentalists at church services. One of the duties

of Franck (and to some extent, no doubt, of the boy Haydn) was to keep

the church register, look after the church clock and ring the bells for

services “and for special occasions, such as thunderstorms”. In an

autobiographical sketch which Haydn wrote in 1778 he said, among other

things: “Our Almighty Father had endowed me with so much facility in

music that even in my sixth year I stood up like a man and sang Masses

in the church choir and I could play a little on the clavier and

violin.” And his biographer, Georg August Griesinger, tells that Haydn

studied “the kettledrum as well as other instruments.”

“Sepperl” was kept at work without respite, but he apparently throve on

all this learning, all this musical practice and all the household

chores which Franck’s wife heaped upon him. Juliana Franck was not at

all like his mother. If she expected the boy to help in the household

she did not worry about his increasing untidiness. “I could not help

perceiving”, said Haydn in his old age when he talked of his Hainburg

experiences “that I was gradually getting very dirty, and though I

thought rather highly of my little person, I was not always able to

avoid stains on my clothes—of which I was dreadfully ashamed; in fact I

was a regular little ragamuffin!” Like Schubert at the “Konvikt” he was

grossly “undernourished”. He wore a wig “for cleanliness’ sake”. Yet his

education, both musical and otherwise, was greatly furthered by his

sojourn in Hainburg. Even if he was hungry and dirty, nothing embittered

him. And in after years he said of Franck: “I shall be grateful to that

man as long as I live, for keeping me so hard at work.” And he had a

picture of his early master wherever he lived, besides remembering

Franck’s daughter in his will.

* * *

Now, however, occurred another of those strokes of good fortune which

punctuated Haydn’s life from his cradle to his grave. Just as Franck

turned up in Rohrau to take him to Hainburg, so now there appeared in

Hainburg a young man from Vienna who set “Sepperl’s” feet squarely on

his further path. Karl Georg Reutter, composer and choirmaster at St.

Stephen’s in the capital, was on a trip looking for good choristers. At

Hainburg Reutter stayed at the home of the pastor, Anton Palmb, who

immediately called his guest’s attention to a boy from Rohrau who had “a

weak but sweet voice.” Haydn’s friend, the Italian Carpani, has left us

the story of the meeting in some detail: “Reutter gave him a tune to

sing at sight. The precision, the purity of tone, the spirit with which

the boy executed it surprised him; but he was especially charmed with

the beauty of the young voice. He remarked that the lad did not trill,

and smilingly asked him the reason. The boy replied promptly: ‘How can

you expect me to trill when my cousin does not know how to himself?’ ‘I

will teach you’, said Reutter; ‘mark me, I will trill’; and taking the

boy between his knees, he showed him how he should produce the notes in

rapid succession, control his breath, and agitate the palate. The boy

immediately made a good shake. Reutter, enchanted with the success of

his pupil, took a plate of fine cherries and emptied them into the boy’s

pocket. His delight may be readily conceived. Haydn often mentioned this

anecdote to me and added, laughing, that whenever he happened to trill

he still thought he saw those beautiful cherries.” Reutter offered to

take “Sepperl” to Vienna to be a choirboy at St. Stephens as well as to

give him a much more thorough musical education than he had received so

far. The matter having been put up to his father and mother, they agreed

instantly and with delight, the more so as Reutter promised “to look

after their boy.” It was agreed that the lad should start for Vienna

when he was eight. His new master gave him some exercises in

scale-singing and sight-reading to work at in the meanwhile and, while

waiting for the great day to arrive, the youngster diligently worked by

himself to develop his voice.

Installed at the Cantor’s house, next to St. Stephen’s, in Vienna,

“Sepperl’s” illusions presently suffered a chill. Reutter suddenly

turned into a hard taskmaster and an unsympathetic disciplinarian. He

was responsible for the education, feeding and clothing of his

choirboys, but the meals were wholly insufficient, indeed skimpier than

what he had in Hainburg. A. C. Dies writes: “Joseph’s stomach had to get

accustomed to continuous fasting. He tried to make up for it with the

musical ‘academies’ (concerts given by the choir in the houses of the

Viennese nobility), where refreshments were offered to the choristers.

As soon as Joseph made this discovery, so important for his stomach, he

was seized with an incredible love for ‘academies’. He endeavored to

sing as beautifully as possible so as to be known and invited as a

skilled performer, and thus find occasions to appease his ravenous

hunger.” Moreover Joseph’s musical education was rather one-sided and

apart from singing and a little violin and clavier playing Reutter did

not bother about his young charge’s training in musical theory. Dr.

Geiringer relates that when, on one occasion, Reutter found Joseph

working on a twelve-part “Salve Regina” he asked with a sneer: “Oh, you

silly child, aren’t two parts enough for you?” But that was about as

much as the instruction amounted to. Reutter was actually a composer of

no inconsiderable distinction, whose teaching could have been of great

help to the aspiring youngster. But in after years Haydn said that he

had only two lessons from this master. All the same, he had priceless

chances to hear much of the best contemporary sacred music. To Johann

Friedrich Rochlitz he once confided: “Proper teachers I have never had.

I always started right away with the practical side, first in singing

and playing instruments, later in composition. I listened more than I

studied but I heard the finest music in all forms that was to be heard

in my time, and of this there was much in Vienna. Oh, so much! I

listened attentively and tried to turn to good account what most

impressed me. Thus little by little my knowledge and my ability were

developed.”

The boys from St. Stephen’s sometimes had a chance to perform at the

Empress Maria Theresia’s newly built palace of Schönbrunn. When the

choir was on one occasion commanded to sing there Joseph, in a burst of

boyish exuberance, climbed some scaffolding and appeared suddenly before

the Empress’s window. Unawed by the imperial threats the boy repeated

the exploit a little later until Maria Theresia ordered the choirmaster

to give this “fair-haired blockhead” a proper thrashing. However, being

extremely musical herself, and a singer of uncommon merits in the

bargain, the Empress could appreciate Joseph’s execution of various

church solos. And he was happier than ever when Michael Haydn joined the

St. Stephen’s choir and added his exceptionally beautiful soprano voice,

of three octaves range, to the ensemble. Joseph was given the duty of

instructing his younger brother in a number of matters. Before long

Michael’s talents were such as to make him outshine Joseph’s. The latter

does not appear to have openly displayed any feelings of jealousy. Yet

it might be inquiring too closely to ask if the older boy was wholly

pleased when his solos were taken away from him and given to his

brother, whose singing so delighted the Emperor and Empress that they

once accorded him a special audience, congratulated him and gave him a

substantial money present. The good Michael promptly sent half of the

money to his father, who had lately lost a cow, and gave the rest to

Reutter to save for him. Reutter took such care of it that poor Michael

never saw a penny of it!

* * *

Suddenly Joseph’s luck seemed to turn against him. His voice cracked.

Maria Theresia began to complain, about 1745, that the boy was “crowing

like a cock.” Joseph was keenly distressed, a fact which was not lost on

Reutter. He summoned Joseph and intimated that there was a means of

doing something about it. _Castrati_ had well-paid positions in the

imperial chapel. Joseph seems to have been wise enough to notify his

father. Mathias Haydn went post-haste to Vienna and the scheme was

dropped. Reutter now waited for his next chance to be rid of a useless

chorister. He soon found it, for some imp of mischief provoked Joseph to

cut off the pig-tail of another boy. “You will be caned on the hand”,

shouted Reutter to the seventeen-year-old Joseph; “of course, you will

be expelled after you have been caned”, he went on. And on a chilly

November morning in 1749, Haydn found himself on the street, penniless,

with exactly three torn shirts and a threadbare coat! If he still

remembered his mother’s wish that he should take holy orders he might

presently have had a roof over his head. But he had a deep assurance

that his destiny lay elsewhere; neither did he appeal to his father for

help, because he knew the little household at Rohrau was at the moment

passing through a financially difficult time.

As he wandered irresolutely, uncertain where he could spend the night

and where his next meal would come from, he met a certain Joseph Michael

Spangler, a singer from St. Michael’s Church, near the Hofburg. Haydn

knew Spangler very slightly but he poured his tale of woe into

sympathetic ears. Spangler was himself all but a pauper. He lived in a

garret with his wife and a nine-months-old baby. Nevertheless he

instantly begged his distressed young friend to follow him home. Joseph

might sleep in the garret, which was a trifle better than the cold

street. About food Spangler could not guarantee, since he and his little

family had themselves barely enough to subsist on.

Little by little Haydn set about making connections. He played the

violin at dances, he found a few pupils (at absurdly low rates, it is

true), he arranged for sundry instruments some trifling compositions by

musically illiterate amateurs; or he participated in street serenades,

which were vastly popular in Vienna. Such “Nachtmusiken” were more

elaborate affairs than the love songs with guitar accompaniment

customary in Italy. Here trios, quartets and even ensembles of

wind-instruments performed compositions of some length and diversity.

Crowds gathered, windows were filled with listeners and the players

earned money and applause. Haydn not only played in these street

performances, he wrote pieces for use at them. The folk music of Vienna

served him well for this purpose, as did the melodies from those border

regions where he was born and which were tinged with foreign strains and

even exotic influences. In some incredible way he made enough for

several months to keep body and soul together. Then a new problem

developed. The Spanglers expected a new baby and now the wretched garret

was definitely too small to house Haydn any longer. The young musician

got around his difficulties temporarily by joining a party of pilgrims

traveling to the wonder-working shrine of the Virgin at Mariazell, in

one of the loveliest recesses of the Austrian Alps. His voice having

returned to him Haydn made an effort to secure a position in the

Mariazell church and appealed to the choirmaster. That worthy was not

impressed by the newcomer’s appearance and suspected a swindler

masquerading as an itinerant musician. Thereupon, the story goes, Haydn

resorted to a bold stratagem. He returned to the church, made his way to

the choir, suddenly snatched a piece of music from an astonished singer

and sang it so beautifully that, as Geiringer relates, “all the choir

held their breath to listen”. As a result Haydn was invited to stay a

week as the choirmaster’s guest and actually earned a sum of money from

the delighted musicians of Mariazell. And luck, as he found, begets

luck. For soon afterwards, a certain Viennese tradesman, Anton Buchholz,

resolved to help the young man carry on his studies and loaned him

“unconditionally” a sum of money which may well have seemed

extraordinary at this stage.

Haydn came back from his pilgrimage to Mariazell rich enough to look for

a garret of his own. He found one, partitioned off from a larger room,

on the sixth floor of the old Michaelerhaus, adjoining St. Michael’s

Church, at the south end of the Kohlmarkt. Both house and church are

still standing, looking to all intents as they did in 1750. Haydn had

plenty of neighbors in his attic. Among them were a cook, a journeyman,

a printer, a footman, and a man who tended the fires in the house of

some rich man. Haydn had six hard flights to climb, besides which there

was no window, no stove, no conveniences of any sort. If he wanted to

wash in the morning he had to get water from a nearby spring and by the

time he brought it up it had often turned to ice. But he had a slight

degree of privacy, enough quiet to study and even to play on a ratty old

clavier which, somehow or other, he had managed to drag upstairs. He got

hold of a number of theoretical books—Johann Joseph Fux’s “Gradus ad

Parnassum,” Mattheson’s “Vollkommener Capellmeister,” Kellner’s

“Unterricht im Generalbass”—and figuratively devoured them. And on his

clavier he played the first six piano sonatas of Philipp Emanuel Bach.

“Innumerable times”, he afterwards related, “I played them for my own

delight, especially when I felt oppressed and discouraged by worries;

and always I left the instrument gay and in high spirits.”

At that time, however, he established two important ties. One was the

famous harlequin, Kurz-Bernardon, who enjoyed an immense popular vogue

by his clever clowning and who managed the Kärntnertor Theatre.

Kurz-Bernardon had an unusually beautiful wife, whose blandishments

justified numerous serenades. On one occasion, when Haydn performed in

one of these, the comedian, struck by the music he heard, appeared at

his door to ask who had composed it. “I did”, answered Joseph; whereupon

the actor bade him “Come upstairs!” Not only was he rewarded with an

introduction to the lady but, according to Carpani, Joseph left with an

opera libretto in his pocket and a commission to compose it at once. The

opera was called “Der krumme Teufel” (“The Limping Devil”). Haydn wrote

the music in a couple of days, but as some nobleman imagined the piece a

lampoon on himself, the work was forbidden before it was ever presented.

One effect in the score the composer admitted had given him more trouble

than “writing a fugue with a double subject.” This was a musical

description of a storm at sea which the play called for. Now, neither

Haydn nor Kurz-Bernardon had ever seen the sea, let alone a storm on it!

Carpani’s tale is most amusing: “How can a man describe what he knows

nothing about? Bernardon, all agitation, paced up and down, while the

composer was seated at the harpsichord. ‘Imagine’, said the actor, ‘a

mountain rising and then a valley sinking, and then another mountain and

another valley....’ This fine description was of no avail and in vain

did the comedian add thunder and lightning. At last, young Haydn, out of

patience, extended his hands to the two ends of the harpsichord and

bringing them in a _glissando_ rapidly together, he exclaimed: ‘The

devil take the tempest!’ ‘That’s it, that’s it’, cried the harlequin,

springing upon his neck and almost stifling him.”

The second acquaintance proved vastly more influential than

Kurz-Bernardon. In the same house—though considerably further downstairs

lived the great Pietro Metastasio, author of innumerable opera librettos

and poet laureate to the Habsburgs. Metastasio, who may have heard

Haydn’s improvisings from afar, was apparently struck by them. He was

interested in the musical training of a friend and suggested the young

pianist up in the garret as a suitable teacher. Haydn was not paid for

his teaching in cash, but he enjoyed free board and a cultured

atmosphere. He became acquainted with Metastasio, whose courtliness and

sensibility could hardly have failed to exercise a most advantageous

effect upon a youth so predisposed to benefit by genteel contacts.

Moreover, Haydn was equally fortunate in meeting his pupil’s singing

master, the great voice teacher and famous composer, Niccolo Porpora,

who spent some years in Vienna. Haydn acted as accompanist in these

lessons and soon begged to be taken into Porpora’s employ as pianist and

pupil in singing and composition, in exchange offering to do the now old

and testy Italian every kind of menial service. Surely it was worth an

occasional cuff and kick, he figured, even seasoned with a few

“blockheads”, if the great Porpora would take the trouble to correct his

musical exercises, give him an insight into the deep secrets of singing

and show him how best to write for the voice. So he cheerfully brushed

the old gentleman’s clothes, cleaned his shoes and saw that his wig was

on straight. For three months Haydn served his peppery master. And in

that time the young man made inestimable progress of all sorts—one of

which was to acquire a fluent command of Italian.

* * *

Joseph, for all his ambition and diligence, may yet have tasted a drop

of bitterness when he reflected how his brother, Michael, seemed still

to outstrip him; and when their mother died in 1754 she must have gone

to her grave persuaded that the truer musician of the Haydn family was

Michael who, at 17, was writing masses of exceptional quality. Joseph

was, indeed, gradually gaining admission into noble circles. The

Countess Thun, for one, was so pleased by some of his sonatas that she

asked to make his acquaintance. Then, when he confronted her face to

face, she decided that this homely and badly-dressed individual, could

hardly be anything but an impostor. Little by little the unfavorable

impression wore off and in due course the distinguished and extremely

musical lady was taking clavier and singing lessons from the man she had

mistaken for a hopeless booby. Through her family Haydn met the very

musical Karl Joseph von Fürnberg, who had a steward, a pastor and still

another friend, all very proficient players. And it was for Fürnberg and

his intimates that Haydn wrote his first string quartets. He was as

industrious as ever. Carpani said: “At daybreak he took the part of the

first violin at the Church of the Fathers of the Order of Mercy; thence

he repaired to the chapel of Count Haugwitz, where he played the organ;

at a later hour he sang the tenor part at St. Stephen’s; and lastly,

having been on foot all day, he passed a part of the night at the

harpsichord.” Then, in 1759, Fürnberg brought him to the attention of

the Bohemian Count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin, who promptly engaged

him as music director and _Kammerkompositor_. Socially, financially and

otherwise Haydn had made a great step up the ladder, from which he was

destined never again to descend.

One of Haydn’s duties at Count Morzin’s was to accompany the Countess

Morzin when she chose to sing, which was frequently. Once, according to

Griesinger, the lady was trying over some songs with Haydn when her

scarf became loose, exposing her bosom. Instantly, Haydn stopped

playing. The lady, irritated, asked the reason. “But, your Highness, who

would not lose his head over this?” he replied. This was only one of the

occasions he began to develop an eye for feminine beauty. He was now

maturing, physically, and his fortunes were improving. This conjunction

of circumstances made him conclude that the time was ripe for him to

marry. It turned out to be one of the most unfortunate inspirations of

his life. Not that Haydn would have failed to make a good husband, but

for the reason that it was his fate to pick the worst possible wife.

He gave lessons to the two daughters of a Viennese hairdresser named

Keller. It was not long before the composer fell in love with the

younger girl, whose name was Therese. But Therese was afflicted with

something of a religious mania and, about 1760, she entered a convent,

as Sister Josepha. The hair-dresser, though a religious man, wanted to

keep the promising young musician in the family, and before long he

prevailed upon him to consider his other daughter. The latter, Maria

Anna Aloysia Apollonia, offered the vilest imaginable combination of

qualities. She was hopelessly unmusical, poisonously jealous, bigoted,

ill-favored, slatternly, a bad housekeeper and, as such women frequently

are, outrageously extravagant.

Haydn got nothing he had bargained for—neither affection, home comforts

nor children. So little regard did Maria Anna Aloysia have for her

husband’s musical eminence that she cheerfully used his manuscripts for

curl papers or else to line pie plates and cake pans. Furthermore, said

Haydn, “my wife was unable to bear children and for this reason I was

less indifferent to the attractions of other women” (Griesinger). Some

have claimed that this Xantippe actually loved her husband, on the

grounds that she obstinately refused to give up a certain picture of

him. Dr. Geiringer says the composer was so little deluded by this

seeming show of affection that he insisted his wife prized the portrait

so highly only because a lover of hers had painted it.

[Illustration: Haydn about 1770, composing at his clavier, in the

palace at Eszterháza.]

At Maria Anna’s invitation the house was overrun with numberless

priests, who were liberally entertained at the Haydn residence and given

orders for innumerable masses, which were straightway charged to the

composer’s account. She could never forget that her husband had

originally preferred her younger sister and she was violently jealous of

the attraction he never failed to exercise on fascinating women. In his

fluent Italian Haydn once remarked to the French violinist, Baillot, as

he pointed out his wife’s picture: “E la mia moglie; m’ha ben fatta

arrabiare!” (“That is my wife; she has often infuriated me!”). To an

Italian singer, who held a firm place in his heart, Haydn spoke many

years later of “my wife, that infernal beast”, who had plagued him with

such malicious letters that he had to threaten he would never return to

her. Geiringer believes that Haydn “must have felt a diabolical pleasure

when he came across the following Lessing poem for which he composed a

canon:

_If in the whole wide world

But one mean wife there is,

How sad that each of us

Should think this one is his!_”

Maria Anna Aloysia was further annoyed that her husband should have

spent so much on various poor relations; in return, she gave

considerable sums to the church. When in 1800 she died while taking a

cure at Baden, Haydn seems to have received the news with complete

indifference.

* * *

Haydn composed his first symphony for the household orchestra of Count

Morzin. As a kind fate would have it one of the guests who listened to

the work was Prince Paul Anton Eszterházy, of the powerful and

enormously wealthy Hungarian family. He was charmed by the symphony and

reflected what a priceless acquisition this young composer would be for

his court at Eisenstadt. Here was a man reared in the grand tradition of

the Eszterházys, always noted for their encouragement of music and other

arts. Prince Paul, a talented composer in his own right, collected

numberless pictorial masterworks, kept a small but trained orchestra and

for years had employed a now aging conductor, Gregorius Joseph Werner.

It was only a short time after Paul Eszterházy had visited the Morzins

that the last-named noble found himself in monetary straits. Among the

first luxuries sacrificed were the expensive orchestra and its

conductor. But instantly Haydn found a safer haven. Prince Eszterházy,

remembering the composer and conductor of the enchanting symphony, acted

at the first news of the Morzin débacle to secure him for himself.

Haydn, offered the post of assistant conductor, accepted with delight.

* * *

On May 1, 1761, Haydn received a contract, of great length and elaborate

detail, which is too extensive to reproduce in all its particulars.

Here, however, are a few of its specifications:

“Joseph Heyden shall be considered and treated as a member of the

household. Therefore his Serene Highness is graciously pleased to place

confidence in his conducting himself as becomes an honorable officer of

a princely house. He must be temperate, not showing himself overbearing

toward his musicians, but mild and lenient, straightforward and

composed. It is especially to be observed that when the orchestra shall

be summoned to perform before company, the Vice-Capellmeister and all

the musicians shall appear in uniform, and the said Joseph Heyden shall

take care that he and all the members of his orchestra follow the

instructions given and appear in white stockings, white linen, powdered

and with either a queue or a tie-wig....

“The said Vice-Capellmeister shall be under obligation to compose such

music as his Serene Highness may command, and neither to communicate

such compositions to any other person, nor to allow them to be copied,

but he shall retain them for the absolute use of his Highness, and not

compose for any other person without the knowledge and permission of his

Highness....

“The said Joseph Heyden shall appear daily in the antechamber before and

after midday, and inquire whether his Highness is pleased to order a

performance of the orchestra.... The said Vice-Capellmeister shall take

careful charge of all music and musical instruments, and be responsible

for any injury that may occur to them from carelessness or neglect....

The said Joseph Heyden shall be obliged to instruct the female

vocalists, in order that they may not forget in the country what they

have been taught with much trouble and expense in Vienna; and since the

Vice-Capellmeister is proficient on various instruments he shall take

care himself to practice on all that he is acquainted with.... A yearly

salary of 400 florins to be received in quarterly payments is hereby

bestowed by his Serene Highness upon the said Vice-Capellmeister. In

addition, the said Joseph Heyden shall board at the officers’ table, or

receive half a gulden per day in lieu thereof.

“His Serene Highness undertakes to keep Joseph Heyden in his service for

at least three years; and should he be satisfied with him, he may look

forward to being appointed Capellmeister....”

* * *

Eisenstadt was to be Haydn’s home for the next thirty years, and in the

service of the Eszterházys he was to do much—though by no means all—of

his greater work. The palace of Eszterháza was a modest place when the

composer first joined the Eszterházy staff compared with the gorgeous

domain it became not very long afterwards. Haydn was, if you will, a

servant. He wrote music to order and went, properly attired, at certain

times of day, to receive the prince’s directions. Dr. Geiringer says:

“To await the commands of so exalted a personage as Prince Eszterházy

... was not humiliating for a man who had only recently risen from the

depths of poverty.” Even the fact of having to wear livery did not irk

him. We are told that old Mathias Haydn (who died in 1765) still lived

“to experience the joy of seeing his son in the princely blue uniform

braided with gold.”

Prince Paul Eszterházy was gathered to his fathers in 1762. Haydn became

the servitor of an Eszterházy who artistically was greatly the superior

of Paul Anton. This one was Prince Nicholas, surnamed “the Magnificent”,

because of his love of splendor and the wealth which enabled him to

indulge his most luxurious tastes. He now undertook to erect a palace

which rivaled Versailles and which, in fact, was a glorified imitation

of the French model. Eszterháza became a vast dream palace compared to

the one where Haydn had first assumed his new post. It is impossible to

give here even the faintest idea of the splendor and sumptuousness of

this “Hungarian Versailles”. An opera house and a theatre for puppet

shows formed part of this superlative show-place; and concert rooms

suited whatever kind of musical performances might be commanded by the

prince. When distinguished guests arrived the brilliancy of the

festivities arranged for their enjoyment knew no limits. The Empress

Maria Theresia visited the Eszterházy estate in 1773 and a special

booklet published in Vienna gives an account of the festivities on that

occasion, which reads like something out of the Arabian Nights. One of

the musical works performed was Haydn’s little lyric comedy,

“L’infedeltà delusa”. The Empress was so delighted that she is said to

have remarked: “If I want to enjoy good opera, I go to Eszterháza.” On

the same evening there was a superb masked ball, following which, in the

Chinese Pavilion, the orchestra, in brilliant uniforms, played a number

of pieces under Haydn’s leadership, one of them the conductor’s new

“Maria Theresia” Symphony. The ball continued all night, though the

Empress—understandably enough—had retired. Next day she heard another

Haydn opera (for marionettes), “Philemon and Baucis”, which Maria

Theresia enjoyed so much that she had the whole production sent to

Vienna for her entertainment. Haydn received the usual snuff-box filled

with gold pieces. He, in return, presented the imperial lady with three

grouse he had shot down; the Empress “graciously accepted them” and took

them home for dinner!

But all this is anticipating. When Haydn settled at Eszterháza he found

at his disposal a competent orchestra, but one much smaller and less

capable than it soon became. The newcomer, though the aged and

desiccated Gregorius Joseph Werner remained nominally chief

Capellmeister and railed at Haydn as “a mere fop” and a “scribbler of

songs”, lost no time reorganizing his forces, yet very tactfully and

without ruffling any feelings. He infused new blood into the personnel,

by acquiring a number of young and greatly talented players. One of

these was a youthful violinist, Luigi Tomasini, whom Prince Paul Anton

had found in Italy and taken to Eszterháza as his valet, and whom Haydn

instantly secured for his orchestra and treated as a brother. Still

another was a cellist of uncommon gifts, Joseph Weigl. Haydn obtained

the musical results he wanted, but always with the discretion of a born

diplomat. Never had he to fight his “superiors”, after the manner of

such stormy petrels as Bach, Handel, Beethoven. His musicians (he always

referred to them as his “children”) idolized him and, because they

respected him, strove to satisfy his demands, which were by no means

slight. His duties were staggeringly heavy. Dr. Geiringer recounts that,

on one occasion, the exhausted Haydn became so sleepy while writing a

horn concerto that he “mixed up the staves for oboe and violin, and

noted in the score as an excuse ‘written while asleep.’”

* * *

It was not long before the musicians fell into the habit of calling

their conductor “Papa Haydn”, on account of his solicitude for their

well-being and his musical knowledge which they recognized as

remarkable. But nothing could be more misleading than the age-old

convention of using “Papa Haydn” as a nickname for this master as if to

imply that he was an artist of outworn, discredited sympathies and of

unprogressive attitude. The antique “Papa Haydn” idea was neatly

scuttled on one occasion by Anton Rubinstein—of all people! When someone

of his acquaintance alluded contemptuously to “Papa Haydn” the great

pianist retorted: “Let me assure you that long after I have become

‘great-grandfather Rubinstein’ he will still continue to be ‘Papa

Haydn’.” Yet Haydn at the time of which we speak was still some distance

from the master who created the greater symphonies and chamber music,

the finest clavier sonatas and certain other memorable keyboard works,

let alone the six most inspired masses and the two oratorios (“The

Creation” and “The Seasons”), the ripest fruits of his old age. If

physically Haydn developed late, the same is true of his creative

genius. Musically and otherwise it appeared for some time as if his

brother, Michael, would surpass him; and if Joseph had died soon after

entering the Eszterházy service it may be seriously questioned if the

world would have felt it had been deprived of an irreplaceable master.

* * *

In more ways than one the sumptuous palace of Eszterháza was the best

possible home for Haydn’s art. Prince Eszterházy, great as were his

demands on Haydn, did his art a service by allowing him to experiment

and thus “forcing him to become original”. He would hardly have become

“original” in the way he did had he been obliged to earn his bread

wandering about Vienna, for he was differently constituted than, let us

say, such an unmistakably Viennese soul as Schubert. Haydn’s early

masters (let us rather say “models”) were not men of imposing creative

dimension. Johann Sebastian Bach died while Haydn was still a youth, his

work had gone out of fashion and was unobtainable in Vienna for years to

come. But the influence of Philipp Emanuel Bach was vastly stronger at

the time than that of his father and Haydn, as we have seen, felt its

impact. Guido Adler, for one, names as Haydn’s early masters minor

composers like Georg Reutter, Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Georg

Matthias Monn. There is evidence that he knew the music of Ignaz

Holzbauer, Johann Stamitz and the Sammartini brothers. Basically more

important for Haydn’s early style was the changed taste which pervaded

the musical world, supplanting the intricate polyphonic style by

homophony and the decorative pleasings of the so-called _style galant_.

It was some time before he can be said to have earned the title of

“father of the symphony” (or, in the deepest sense, of the sonata or the

string quartet). The early symphonies of Haydn seem much closer to the

concerto grosso of the Baroque period than to the later “Paris” and

“London” symphonies. The musical form which occupied Haydn perhaps most

of all was the string quartet, of which as many as 83 were enumerated in

a catalogue of his works Haydn prepared in 1805. “We do not know the

exact number of Haydn’s string quartets,” declares Karl Geiringer, who

also adds “the composer was in his early twenties when he wrote his

first quartet and he had passed his 70th birthday before he began to

work on his last.”

* * *

In 1766 Gregorius Werner died and Haydn was officially appointed

Capellmeister of the Eszterházy orchestra. He had by now brought the

ensemble to a high state of perfection. Besides the cellist Weigl (who

later joined the Vienna court orchestra) Haydn could boast, in addition

to “brother Luigi” Tomasini, as concertmaster, the fine cellists, Franz

Xaver Marteau and Anton Kraft. Prince Eszterházy, who paid even higher

salaries than the imperial court at Vienna, could have his pick and

choice of any artist he wanted. The schedule at Eszterháza called for

two opera performances a week, two weekly concerts and, in Prince

Nicholas’ private salon, plenty of chamber music. The prince greatly

enjoyed playing the baryton, a now obsolete form of viola da gamba. It

was uncommonly difficult and the Prince enjoyed it all the more for that

reason. Haydn had his work cut out for him supplying his employer with

new music for the instrument. Once he thought he would give Prince

Nicholas pleasure by learning to play the baryton himself and declared

he was ready to play it for his Serene Highness. This time he had

miscalculated—his Highness returned no more than a glacial stare!

Nicholas, moreover, insisted he must have _all_ the most difficult

passages in anything Haydn might write for him. The cellist, Kraft, was

once given a particularly easy part in a baryton duet to perform with

the prince, who cut short any possible argument with the words: “It is

no credit to you to play better than I do; it is your duty.”

The normal schedule of the artists was, of course, far heavier and more

complicated, when distinguished visitors arrived for longer or shorter

sojourns. Under the circumstances, neither Haydn nor anyone else, had a

chance to be bored at Eszterháza. Now and then, however, these birds in

a golden cage longed for a little freedom. Haydn himself once wrote in a

letter: “I never can obtain leave, even to go to Vienna for twenty-four

hours. It is scarcely credible, and yet the refusal is always couched in

such polite terms as to render it utterly impossible for me to urge my

request.” This is the place to speak of the so-called “Farewell

Symphony”, a piece of music with a definite purpose (if not exclusively

an artistic one) in which Haydn got the better of his prince. In 1772

Nicholas ruled that none of the musicians might bring his wife or

children to Eszterháza. In only three cases was an exception made.

Prince Nicholas, having paid his musicians an extra fifty florins to

provide for the families they were not permitted to visit, considered

that he had no further obligations. Finally, the players who had to pass

the greater part of the year without seeing their wives, rebelled. In

Griesinger’s words: “The affectionate husbands appealed to Haydn to help

them. Haydn decided to write a symphony in which one instrument after

the other ceases to play. The work was executed as soon as an occasion

presented itself, and each player was instructed to put out his candle

when his part was ended, seize his music and leave with his instrument

tucked under his arm. The prince instantly understood the meaning of

pantomime and the next day he gave the order to leave Eszterháza.”

All the same, the advantages of Haydn’s life at Eszterháza, even when it

threatened to grow dull, were inestimable. He once told Griesinger: “My

prince was always satisfied with my works. Not only did I have the

encouragement of constant approval, but as conductor of an orchestra I

could make experiments, observe what produced an effect and what

weakened it, and was thus in a position to improve, to alter, make

additions or omissions, and be as bold as I pleased. I was cut off from

the world; there was no one to confuse or torment me....”

* * *

Prince Eszterházy, in 1779, engaged an Italian violinist, Antonio

Polzelli, and his wife, Luigia, a mezzo-soprano. Polzelli was a sickly

man and not particularly competent. Still less was Luigia, who needed

much help from Haydn to fit her for minor musical duties. What moved the

Prince to pick this misfit pair for his establishment is a problem. They

were not a happy couple, scarcely more than were Haydn and his “Infernal

Beast”! Luigia was nineteen, lively, graceful—an adorable type of

Italian beauty. The Prince soon decided that the imported couple

represented a needless expense, though the two were pathetically

underpaid. But this time Haydn was resolute. The Polzellis must stay in

Eszterháza under _any_ conditions! Eszterházy, being a man of the world,

realized that in certain things an irreplaceable orchestral conductor

must be allowed his way, whatever the conventions.

Luigia was attracted to Haydn as were numerous other women whose path he

crossed. He himself often admitted it could not have been for his

beauty. Dr. Geiringer says that we know “practically nothing about

Luigia.” At any rate Haydn never made any secret of his love for her or

she for him—not, at any rate, till much later, when new interests

entered his life. At Eszterháza the affair was an open secret. Doubtless

they would have married. But the invalid Antonio and the venomous Maria

Anna Aloysia settled that. There are no letters extant dealing with

those first years of their love. But in 1791 he wrote Luigia: “I love

you as on the first day, and I am always sad when I cannot do more for

you. But be patient, perhaps the day will arrive when I can show you how

much I love you.” When Antonio Polzelli died, not very long afterwards,

Haydn wrote Luigia: “Perhaps the time will come, for which we have so

often wished when two pairs of eyes will be closed. One is shut already

but what of the other? Well, be it as God wills.” Luigia had two sons,

the first born in 1777, the second six years later, in Eszterháza. Haydn

was devoted to both, and gossip insisted he was the father of the

younger. He taught the two boys music and, irrespective of the question

of paternity, he made no distinction between them. Singularly enough,

“the Infernal Beast” who abominated Luigia, showed herself exceptionally

kind to Pietro Polzelli when he visited her in 1792.

* * *

About 1781 Haydn established a friendship which was to grow increasingly

profound and more influential. He made the acquaintance of Wolfgang

Amadeus Mozart, who had come from Salzburg to settle at last in Vienna.

The sympathy was mutual, though the two masters were in many ways the

absolute reverse of each other. Mozart was from his childhood a genuine

virtuoso, such as Haydn had never pretended to be. Neither had Haydn

matured artistically with anything like the speed of the sensitive and

mercurial genius from Salzburg, nor possessed anything like the

universality of the latter’s gifts. Be these things as they may, the

pair seemed to have come into the world to complement one another. Their

friendship is one of the most beautiful and productive the history of

music affords. “Haydn was fascinated by Mozart’s quicksilver

personality, while Mozart enjoyed the sense of security that Haydn’s

steadfastness and warmth of feeling gave him.” And it was as if the two

kindled brighter artistic sparks in their respective souls. The two

played chamber music together whenever Haydn made a trip to Vienna. When

Leopold Mozart visited his son, in 1785, Wolfgang, Haydn and several

friends performed some of Mozart’s new quartets for Father Mozart. It

was on this occasion that Haydn made to Leopold the oft-quoted remark:

“I tell you before God and as an honest man that your son is the

greatest composer known to me either in person or by reputation. He has

taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”

Wolfgang was delighted, but declared at the same time that it was only

from Haydn that he had learned how to write string quartets. And the

half-dozen he issued in 1785 and dedicated with moving phrases to his

“beloved friend Haydn” are doubtless among the finest he composed. On

the other hand, Mozart never permitted a derogatory word to be said in

his presence about Haydn. And when the Bohemian composer and pianist,

Leopold Kozeluch, once said to Mozart on hearing a boldly dissonant

passage in a Haydn quartet: “I would never have written that,” Mozart

instantly retorted: “Nor would I! And do you know why? Because neither

you nor I would have had so excellent an idea.... Sir, even if they

melted us both together, there would still not be stuff enough to make a

Haydn.” When some years later Haydn was asked his opinion about a

debated passage in “Don Giovanni” he answered with finality: “I cannot

settle this dispute, but this I know: Mozart is the greatest composer

that the world now possesses!” And hearing an argument about the harmony

in the beginning of Mozart’s C major Quartet Haydn put a stop to the

controversy then and there by saying: “If Mozart wrote it so he must

have had good reason for it.” And when someone in Prague invited Haydn

to write an opera for that city he declined on the ground—among other

things—that he “would be taking a big risk, for scarcely any man could

stand comparison with the great Mozart. Oh, if I could only explain to

every musical friend ... the inimitable art of Mozart, its depth, the

greatness of its emotion, and its unique musical conception, as I myself

feel and understand it, nations would then vie with each other to

possess so great a jewel.... Prague ought to strive not merely to retain

this precious man, but also to remunerate him; for without this support

the history of any great genius is sad indeed. It enrages me to think

that the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some imperial

or royal court. Do forgive this outburst but I love that man too much.”

* * *

It should not be imagined that the various operas of Haydn have anything

like the vitality, the dramatic life or the quality of “theatre” we find

in the stage works of Mozart. The greater part were composed for the

play-house at Eszterháza and in certain cases for marionettes. Sometimes

they were slender comedies, on the “Singspiel” order, sometimes masques,

intermezzi, scenic cantatas. Possibly the two operas which in modern

times have experienced most frequent revival are the comedy, “Lo

Speziale” (“The Apothecary”) and “Il Mondo della Luna” (“The World of

the Moon”).

His life at Eszterháza had the advantage of preserving Haydn from the

intrigues and jealousies that ran riot in Vienna and from which even a

Mozart had to suffer so bitterly. Yet without traveling far from

Eisenstadt Haydn was now rapidly becoming widely famous. One of the

first countries where he gained glory in distinguished circles was

Spain. In 1779 his music was already becoming a subject of high-flown

poetic praise. In 1781 King Charles III sent the composer a gold

snuffbox. The secretary of the Spanish Legation went to Eszterháza in

person to convey his sovereign’s esteem to Haydn, whose princely

employer must have swelled with pride at such a lofty distinction so

ceremoniously conferred upon his “servant”. The composer, Luigi

Boccherini, a protégé of the Spanish king’s brother, strove so

successfully to imitate Haydn’s style that someone called him “Haydn’s

wife”. Perhaps the most important Spanish honor of all came from a canon

of Cadiz for a work called “The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the

Cross”. Let us cite Haydn’s own words which preface the score published

by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1801:

“About 1786 I was requested to compose instrumental music in ‘The Seven

Last Words.’ It was customary at the Cathedral of Cadiz to produce an

oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not

a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows,

and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large

lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn obscurity. At

midday the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short

service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the

seven words and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the

pulpit and prostrated himself before the altar. The pause was filled by

music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then

the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each

discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no

easy matter to compose seven adagios to last ten minutes each, and

succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it

quite impossible to confine myself within the appointed limits.”

Haydn looked upon the composition as one of his most important and, as a

matter of fact, it widely exercised a profound impression. It was even

performed in the United States in 1793. When it came to paying Haydn for

his work the Spanish ecclesiast presented the composer with a large sum

of money concealed in an enormous chocolate cake! The “Seven Last Words”

were, in the course of years, done by a string quartet, by an orchestra,

as an oratorio. Today the work is hard to listen to with patience,

impressive as it once seemed. A series of adagios, one much like the

other, it has precisely the effect that the composer at first feared:

the various movements as they succeed one another end by sorely

“fatiguing the hearers”.

France and England, in their turn, presently developed unmistakable

signs of Haydn worship, which progressed increasingly. In Italy the

composer steadily won favor. The Philharmonic Society of Modena made him

a member as early as 1780. Ferdinand IV, of Naples, a few years later

ordered concertos for an instrument called the lira organizzata. The

king wanted Haydn to visit Italy; the composer would have loved to do

so, but could not leave Eszterháza. Frederick William II, of Prussia,

who played the cello, sent Haydn a superb and costly diamond ring. We

are told that he put on the ring whenever he began an important work

because “when he forgot to do so no ideas occurred to him”. He also

received a costly ring from his pupil, the Russian Grand Duchess Maria

Feodorovna, whom he taught in 1782 in Vienna and for whom he composed

numerous songs more than twenty years later. Then, in 1781, Haydn

informed the Viennese publisher, Artaria, that “Monsieur Le Gros,

director of the Concerts Spirituels in Paris, wrote me a great many nice

things about my ‘Stabat Mater’ which had been given there four times

with great applause.... They made me an offer to engrave all my future

works on very advantageous terms.” In 1784 a Paris society, the Concerts

de la Loge Olympique (patronized by French royalty, and where audiences

were required to pass a kind of examination before they were admitted to

its functions) commissioned Haydn to write six symphonies for them, to

which solicitation we owe the composer’s great series of “Paris”

Symphonies. Not only did French publishers now make profitable proposals

to Haydn; in Luigi Cherubini, meanwhile, he had one of his most

impassioned advocates in Paris.

Haydn could probably have gone to England and become associated with the

musical life of that country much sooner than he did. When in 1783 the

Professional Concerts were founded in London an attempt was made to

secure him to take over their direction. The composer, not feeling that

Prince Eszterházy would have given his consent, had to refuse and the

English public contented itself with listening to a Haydn symphony as

the opening offering of the series. By that time Haydn’s music was so

well known and stood so high in British favor that his works had gained

a preponderant place in the musical life of the country. The Prince of

Wales, an excellent cellist, caused Haydn’s quartets to be performed

continually at the palace musicales. And invitations to come to England

poured upon Haydn from every corner of the Island Kingdom. For all that,

he remained as simple and unspoiled as ever. He never forgot his humble

origin. To Griesinger he once said: “I have had intercourse with

emperors, kings and many a great personage, and have been told by them

quite a few flattering things. For all that, I do not care to be on

intimate terms with such persons and prefer to keep to people of my own

station.”

In Vienna the number of Haydn’s intimates steadily increased. As the

years of his sojourn at Eszterháza passed pleasantly, but monotonously,

the composer strove increasingly to widen his Viennese circle of

friends. He was able to accomplish this without unusual effort. The

publisher, Artaria, who had close business connections with Haydn, was

only one of the master’s cronies. Then, of course, there were Mozart and

his friends Michael Kelly, Stephen and Nancy Storace, the merchant

Michael Puchberg (who immortalized himself by lending Mozart money). And

Haydn, following the suggestion of Mozart and Puchberg, became a

Freemason and joined the lodge Zur wahren Eintracht. But in some ways

the closest friends of Haydn’s in Vienna were Peter L. von Genzinger and

his wife, Marianne. Von Genzinger had long been Prince Eszterházy’s

doctor. Both he and his wife were to the highest degree cultured and

musical—Frau von Genzinger, for that matter, was an uncommonly gifted

pianist and singer. Haydn was so welcome a guest in that hospitable

dwelling that, among other things, his hostess never tired of preparing

for him his favorite dishes. The only drop of bitterness the lovely

Genzinger home brought him was the poignant contrast it sometimes

furnished to the growing monotony of Eszterháza, to which place he

returned with a pang. “Well here I sit in my wilderness, like some poor

orphan, almost without human society, melancholy, dwelling on the memory

of past glorious days”, he wrote to Marianne von Genzinger, in 1790,

after he had mournfully returned to Eszterháza. His letters to Marianne

have a freedom and a spontaneity not to be found in Haydn’s usually

stilted correspondence. As time passed it became fairly evident that

Haydn deeply, if hopelessly, loved her. To be sure, he wrote that “she

need be under no uneasiness ... for my friendship and esteem for you

(warm as they are) can never become reprehensible since I have always in

my mind my respect for your elevated virtues, which not only I, but all

who know you must reverence.... Oh, that I could be with you, dear lady,

even for a quarter of an hour, to pour forth all my sorrows, and to

receive comfort from you! Well, as God pleases! This time will also pass

away and the day return when I shall again have the inexpressible

pleasure of being seated beside you at the pianoforte, hearing Mozart’s

masterpieces, and kissing your hands from gratitude for so much

pleasure.”

Between the lines it is possible to read that for all his honors and

distinctions Haydn was not growing happier at Eszterháza as the years

elapsed. By 1790 we find him writing: “I am doomed to stay at home. It

is indeed sad always to be a slave.” He was growing restive amid all

this Eszterházy luxury. He had his orchestra, his palatial little

theatre, the unending festivities at Eszterháza; he had Luigia Polzelli

and he had little occasion to bother about the “Infernal Beast”, who,

though she still walked the earth, scarcely existed for him. But it

irked him that he could not accept those invitations to visit foreign

countries which were piling in upon him. The truth, as Dr. Geiringer

keenly observes, was that “Haydn had outgrown Eszterháza.... Even his

attachment to his beloved prince had somewhat diminished. Haydn, now a

man of nearly 60, like a person of half his age, craved for a change,

new tasks, new experiences. With the sure instinct of genius he felt

that the immense creative forces still slumbering in him could be

released only by a cleancut break with the way of life that for nearly

30 years had been dear to him.”

* * *

At the psychological moment destiny came to Haydn’s aid somewhat as,

decades later, it invariably came to Wagner’s. In the fall of 1790,

Prince Nicholas the Magnificent died suddenly. His successor, Prince

Anton Eszterházy, who was unmusical and otherwise unlike his father,

instantly dismissed the orchestra, retaining only Haydn, Tomasini and a

few others to take care of the church music. He did not, indeed,

discharge Haydn and even paid him well to keep him nominally in his

employ. But he gave the master leave to travel wherever he wanted.

Instantly Haydn dashed to Vienna, where fate took charge of his

interests once more. A relative of the Eszterházys wanted him for

another princely post at Pressburg; the king of Naples repeated his

earlier invitation to Italy. Then, while the composer deliberated, a

stranger burst into his room with the words: “My name is Salomon. I have

come from London to fetch you; we shall conclude our accord tomorrow.”

Haydn was bowled over and almost before he realized the truth, Johann

Peter Salomon, of Bonn, superintended everything. Haydn was to be paid

300 pounds for an opera, 300 more for six new symphonies, 200 for the

copyrights, 200 for twenty smaller pieces, 200 more for a benefit

concert in London. He had, then and there, to consider whether it was to

be Pressburg, Italy or England. One reason he decided against Italy was

because he appreciated that he was not a born opera composer, like

Mozart. But though Haydn spoke Italian and knew not a word of English

(besides which the Channel crossing worried him), he decided—most

fortunately as it proved—on England. For one thing, he realized that

England was at that time a leader in the orchestral field; in the second

place Haydn was surfeited with nobility and the courts of princes. And

he longed for the personal freedom which England assured him. So London

it should be! His friends—among them Mozart—were frightened. “Oh, Papa,

you have had no education for the wide world, and you speak so few

languages,” protested Wolfgang. “But my language is understood all over

the world,” gently replied Haydn. Just the same, he found parting from

Mozart harder than from any of his other friends. And when they took

leave of one another the younger man exclaimed prophetically: “I am

afraid, Papa, this will be our last farewell.” Mozart’s death was one of

the sorest blows Haydn ever suffered, and the pain of it actually

sharpened with the passing of time.

Ten days before Christmas, 1790, Haydn set out on his journey with

Salomon. They took ship at Calais, January 1, 1791, at 7:30 A.M. (“after

attending early Mass”). As he wrote Marianne von Genzinger, he was “very

well, although somewhat thinner, owing to fatigue, irregular sleep, and

eating and drinking so many things”. In spite of a choppy sea he stood

the crossing admirably, probably because “I remained on deck during the

whole passage, in order to gaze my fill at that huge monster, the

ocean.” Only once or twice was he “seized with slight alarm and a little

indisposition likewise”. Yet he arrived at Dover “without being actually

sick”, even if most of the passengers did “look like ghosts.” Doubtless

he recalled with amusement his boyish attempts to portray a storm at sea

on the harpsichord in the days of Kurz-Bernardon!

Haydn’s first impressions of London were overwhelming. He was as struck

and delighted with the size and grandeur of the British metropolis, its

crowds, its teeming traffic and the “strangeness” of English life as was

even the worldlier Mendelssohn, several decades later. Nevertheless, he

was not a little frightened and found the street noise “unbearable”. He

had not a little trouble with the language and was much confused about

the right thing to do when people drank his health. He wrote to Frau von

Genzinger that he was trying to learn English by taking morning walks

alone in the woods “with his English grammar.” Salomon did not spare him

any of the customary social engagements and amenities. Before he had

been in London three weeks he was invited to a court ball and welcomed

by the Prince of Wales, who, so Haydn decided, was “the handsomest man

on God’s earth”. The Prince (the future George IV) “wore diamonds worth

80,000 pounds.” Haydn eventually managed to secure a recipe for the

Prince’s brand of punch; it called for “one bottle of champagne, one of

burgundy, one of rum, ten lemons, two oranges and a pound and a half of

sugar.”

On March 11, 1791, occurred Haydn’s first concert in the Hanover Square

Rooms. The function in every respect exceeded the composer’s fondest

hopes. Its outstanding feature was the D major Symphony (No. 93). The

orchestra surpassed both numerically and otherwise the one Haydn had

commanded at Eszterháza. The master conducted from a harpsichord, as had

always been his custom. The concertmaster was the worthy Salomon, who

played on a superb Stradivarius. Dr. Burney spoke of “a degree of

enthusiasm such as almost amounted to frenzy.” The Adagio of the

symphony had to be repeated. The _Morning Chronicle_ wrote: “We cannot

suppress our very anxious hope that the first musical genius of the age

may be induced by our liberal welcome to take up his residence in

England.” It was a wish which speedily spread. Even the King pressed the

composer to make his home there and when, with the best grace in the

world Haydn assured him his Continental obligations would not permit him

to do so, the monarch was more or less offended. One reason the master

gave for his refusal was that “he could not leave his wife”—though the

“Infernal Beast” was probably farthest from his thoughts! What really

stood in the way of a permanent English residence was the fear of the

tremendous drain on his creative powers his popularity might entail. He

was, indeed, on the threshold of his greatest achievements and he was

strong and healthy. All the same he was not growing younger. And he knew

what the strain of being incessantly lionized would do in the long run.

For the time being, however, British adulation only had the effect of

making Haydn more splendidly productive than ever. The twelve Salomon

symphonies (six composed for Haydn’s first visit to London, the

remaining set written for his second a few years later) are indisputably

Haydn’s greatest symphonic creations. Let us mention a few of them:

There is the so-called “Military” Symphony (Haydn’s symphonies are more

easily distinguished by their sometimes fanciful titles, than by keys or

opus numbers); the “Clock”, with its Andante, marked by a persistent

tick-tock rhythm; the symphony “With the Kettledrum Roll”; the

“Surprise”, with its folk-like melody and its title derived from a

wholly unexpected fortissimo (which Haydn believed would “wake up the

old ladies”) following a placid folk-like phase—yet actually more of a

“surprise” from the astonishing harmonies heard just before the close of

the variation movement.

The London Symphonies, together with “The Creation” and “The Seasons” as

well as certain of the great string quartets, parts of which so

astoundingly foreshadow the idiom of the Romantic period, are, in

reality, the summits of Haydn’s inspiration. It is a question if his

genius would have unfolded itself so magnificently without the stimulus

which came to the master from his two visits to England. In July, 1791,

he was invited to the Oxford Commemoration to receive from the

University the honorary degree of Doctor of Music. The occasion proved

to be a love feast. Three concerts were given in Haydn’s honor, at one

of which he conducted his G major Symphony (No. 92), written several

years earlier, but henceforth called the “Oxford” Symphony. As his

“exercise” he wrote for the University a three part crab canon, “Thy

Voice, O Harmony is Divine”. For three days he went about in “cherry and

cream-colored silk”. “I wish my friends in Vienna could have seen me”,

he wrote, remarking in his diary “I had to pay one and a half guineas

for the bell peals at Oxford when I received the Doctor’s degree, and

half a guinea for hiring the gown. The journey cost six guineas.” By no

means a cheap honor! At the same time it is worth-while mentioning a

statement of his to Dies, his biographer: “I owe much, I might say

everything in England to the Doctor’s degree; for thanks to it I met the

first men and was admitted to the most important houses.”

One of Haydn’s greatest and most fruitful experiences in London was his

attendance in 1791 at a huge Handel Commemoration in Westminster Abbey.

It was a prodigious affair with more than a thousand participants.

Handel’s masterpieces may not have been intimately familiar to Haydn,

though the Baron Van Swieten in Vienna made a cult both of Handel and

Johann Sebastian Bach. In Westminster Abbey, however, with such a

gigantic array of performers and a public brought up in the reverence of

Handel’s masterpieces the effect of a creation like “Messiah” was no

less than shattering on Haydn. When he heard the “Hallelujah” chorus he

burst into tears with the exclamation “Handel is the master of us all!”

And it seems to have been the impact of Handel which moved him to

contemplate an oratorio of his own. The outcome of this Handelian

experience and of the great British tradition of massive choruses

became, in due time, “The Creation” and “The Seasons.”

Haydn was immensely busy in England but he was thoroughly enjoying

himself. He was entertained for five entire weeks at the home of a rich

banker who lived in the country and who asked Haydn to give music

lessons to his daughters, yet tactfully left the composer as much alone

as he wished to be. So he was able to rest a little from the noise of

London. Another time he went by boat from Westminster Bridge to Richmond

and had dinner on a lovely island in the Thames; or he went to a dance

at the home of the Lord Mayor of London, leaving when he found the room

too hot and the music too bad; then he remained for three days at a

castle where the Duke of York and his bride were spending their

honeymoon. “Oh, my dear good lady”, he exclaimed in a letter to Marianne

von Genzinger, “how sweet is some degree of liberty! I had a kind

prince, but was obliged at times to be dependent on base souls. I often

sighed for release and now I have it in some measure. I am quite

sensible of this benefit, though my mind is burdened with more work. The

consciousness of being no longer a servant sweetens all my toil.”

At a concert given in York House, where Haydn played, Salomon led an

orchestra and the King and Queen were present, the composer was formally

presented by the Prince of Wales to George III. The monarch talked for

some time to the former “servant” of the Eszterházys and said, among

other things, “Dr. Haydn, you have written a good deal.” Whereupon Haydn

answered: “Yes, Sire, a great deal more than is good.” The King had the

last word, however, and replied: “Oh, no; the world contradicts you.”

There can be no question, however, that on both his visits to England

Haydn was called upon to subject his creative powers to a terrific

strain. The strangest part of it was that the artist, whose years were

now accumulating, seemed actually to be making up for the slow

development of his genius in his young manhood. Not only were the works

he produced greater and greater, but his assimilation of great and new

musical influences was progressing steadily.

Apart from his other English activities there was no end of sight-seeing

to be done, complicated with a considerable amount of teaching. At the

end of the music season the “worn out” master, went to Vauxhall Gardens,

was delighted with the place where, among other things the music was

“fairly good” and where “coffee and milk cost nothing”. However, he did

have a few twinges of the “English rheumatism” and almost submitted to

an operation for his nose polypus—though when they tied him to a chair

and prepared to operate he “kicked and screamed so vigorously”, that the

surgeon and his assistants had to give it up.

Not even a Haydn escaped intrigues and baseless slander. A rival concert

organization, unable to win him away from Salomon launched rumors that

the composer was showing signs of exhaustion and then sought to play off

against Haydn the aging master’s devoted pupil, Ignaz Pleyel. Another

thing he seems not to have managed avoiding was a love affair. “There

were certainly quite a few innocent friendships with beautiful women”,

relates Dr. Geiringer, “but they did not prevent the inflammable master

from enjoying a more significant romance as well”. Strangely enough, we

know about it only from the letters of the lady in question, which Haydn

carefully copied because, presumably, she wanted her correspondence

back! So far as we have this interchange it is quite one-sided and none

of Haydn’s letters to her remain. The lady in the case was a widow, a

Mrs. Schroeter. Dr. Burney referred to her as “a young lady of

considerable fortune”. Later, Haydn spoke of her to Dies, as “an English

widow in London who loved me. Though 60 years old, she was still lovely

and amiable, and in all likelihood I should have married her if I had

been single.” Like Marianne von Genzinger, Mrs. Schroeter was musical

and did copyist work for the composer. Actually, she seems to have been

much younger than Haydn’s estimate. Here are a few extracts from the

letters he received from her in London: “... Pray inform me how you do,

and let me know my Dear Love: When will you dine with me? I shall be

truly happy to see you to dinner, either tomorrow or Tuesday.... I am

truly anxious and impatient to see you and I wish to have as much of

your company as possible; indeed my dear Haydn I feel for you the

fondest and tenderest affection the human heart is capable of, and I

ever am with the firmest attachment my Dear Love, most Sincerely,

Faithfully and most affectionately Yours...”. Another time, the devoted

Mrs. Schroeter is concerned about his health: “I am told you was (sic!)

at your Study’s yesterday; indeed, my D.L., I am afraid it will hurt

you.... I almost tremble for your health. Let me prevail on you my much

loved Haydn not to keep to your study’s so long at one time. My dear

love if you could know how precious your welfare is to me, I flatter

myself you wou’d endeavor to preserve it, for my sake as well as your

own.” Another time: “... I hope to hear you are quite well, shall be

happy to see you at dinner and if you can come at three o’clock it would

give me great pleasure, as I should be particularly glad to see you my

Dear before the rest of our friends come.”

All the same, Haydn amid his numberless duties, found time to write to

Luigia Polzelli, who was now in Italy. She was not a little jealous and

the composer found it wise to placate her with extravagantly ardent

letters and money. He would have been happy to see her son, Pietro, in

London but he was much less anxious to have Luigia. Meantime, the

“Infernal Beast” again stirred up trouble by sending notes to her

detested rival hinting at Haydn’s infidelities!

Let us herewith end the story of Luigia. Haydn had once promised to

marry her when he should be free. When, at long last Maria Anna

Apollonia died in 1800, the Polzelli chose to remind him of his promise.

But he solved the difficulty by giving her black on white, his solemn

word to marry “no one else” and he also promised her a substantial

pension for the rest of her life. Having pocketed that “promise” Luigia

promptly married an Italian singer! Her son, Pietro, died in 1796. Haydn

sincerely mourned him but turned his attention to another pupil of his,

Sigismund Neukomm.

The wanderer came back to Vienna in midsummer, 1792. After the

exhilaration of the first English trip the return to Vienna, for all his

honors and distinctions, was chilling. No one seemed to care greatly.

Moreover, there was one irreplaceable loss; Mozart was no more; and

early in 1793 another blow struck Haydn—Marianne von Genzinger died at

38. Here was a calamity in its way rivaling the tragedy of Mozart.

Haydn’s resilient nature recovered even from the death of Marianne. But

a certain sweetness departed with her and never returned. Singularly

enough, there entered into his musical life about this time a force one

might assume would have fortified him to bear the burden of his poignant

losses. Beethoven arrived in Vienna from Bonn bearing the following

message from Count Waldstein: “Dear Beethoven, you are traveling to

Vienna in fulfillment of your long-cherished wish. The tutelary genius

of Mozart is still weeping and bewailing the death of her favorite. With

the inexhaustible Haydn she has found refuge, but no occupation, and now

she is waiting to leave him and associate herself with someone else.

Labor assiduously and receive Mozart’s spirit from the hands of Haydn.”

* * *

Haydn was the wrong teacher for Beethoven and Beethoven the wrong pupil

for Haydn. The young man’s relations with the old master were kind and

friendly (Beethoven, according to his diaries, treated Haydn to

“chocolate twenty-two times” and to “coffee six times”). But there was a

spiritual gulf between them of which they both became aware. Haydn,

indeed, foreshadowed musical romanticism, yet he did not, like his new

pupil, arrogantly identify himself with it. Beethoven had none of that

soul of a servitor which Haydn had acquired through his long career; so

it was not without reason that the teacher used to allude to the

hot-headed pupil as “the Grand Mogul”. Moreover, Beethoven wanted to be

instructed in counterpoint the hard way; and he was greatly irritated

when Haydn did not carefully correct his technical exercises. Therefore,

though the relationship remained outwardly amicable and the lessons went

on, Beethoven changed teachers. He placed himself in the hands of the

composer, Johann Schenk, and of the contrapuntist, Johann

Albrechtsberger. As Schenk had told Beethoven in looking over some of

his technical work, Haydn was now too busy composing great masterworks

to be occupied by the needs of a particularly obstreperous student.

In 1794 Haydn started out a second time for London, but this time not in

Salomon’s company. Yet as he did not wish to make the journey unattended

he decided on one of his young friends for an escort—Polzelli, Beethoven

or some other. His usual luck attended him when he picked Johann

Elssler, whose father had copied music at Eszterháza. Johann was Haydn’s

godson and in the fullness of time he became the father of the famous

dancer, Fanny Elssler. He idolized Haydn, served him hand and foot, was

secretary, copyist and the first to assist Haydn in cataloguing his

works. On this English visit Haydn traveled rather more extensively than

the first time. He went to the Isle of Wight, to Southampton, to Waverly

Abbey, to Winchester. He went to Hampton Court, which reminded him of

Eszterháza. He heard “miserable trash” at the Haymarket Theatre and even

worse at Sadler’s Wells. In Bath he met a Miss Brown, “an amiable

discreet person”, who had the additional advantage of “a beautiful

mother”; he saw the grave of “Turk, a faithful dog and not a man”; and

he composed music to a poem by the conductor of the Bath Harmonic

Society, “What Art Expresses”.

In August, 1795, Haydn was back in Vienna, and although the heart-breaks

of the previous return were spared him he found plenty of new

organizational labor awaiting him at Eszterháza, where a new prince,

Nicholas II, a grandson of “The Magnificent” now held sway. His artistic

tastes, though pronounced, did not run primarily in the directions of

music. He gave Cherubini a gorgeous and costly ring, he liked the music

of Reutter and Michael Haydn more than that of the great Eszterházy

Capellmeister, and then insulted Beethoven with a stupid remark about

the latter’s C major Mass. He even criticised Haydn’s management of some

detail at an orchestral rehearsal, whereupon the now thoroughly

irascible master turned on his patron with a wrathy: “Your Highness, it

is my job to decide this!” He felt now that a Doctor of Music at Oxford

should be addressed more respectfully than simply as “Haydn”.

* * *

In London the composer once said: “I want to write a work which will

give permanent fame to my name in the world.” After his numberless

symphonies, his masses, his clavier works, his vast store of chamber

music, his concertos, his operatic miscellany, his songs and arias—after

all these what could remain? England had given him one unrivaled

experience from which he could nourish his genius—the mighty Handel

Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey. Haydn had experimented in countless

forms, but one. That was the oratorio and in this he could undertake new

flights.

Where should he find a subject? Some say that a musical friend of

Haydn’s answered the master by opening a Bible standing handy and

exclaiming: “There! Take that and begin at the beginning!” Others

maintain that Salomon gave him a libretto which one Lidley had pieced

together from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” for Handel. Dr. Geiringer

believes that both accounts may be true. At all events, Haydn returned

to Vienna with the text. It was, however, in English, which Haydn

understood imperfectly. It was necessary, consequently, to find an

accomplished translator. As usual, good fortune attended him. Gottfried

van Swieten, a literatteur, prefect of the Vienna Royal Library, friend

of Mozart, worshipper of Handel and Bach, who thought highly of Haydn,

was wealthy even if despotic, yet still after a fashion musical—this man

was able to furnish Haydn what he required. Nay, more, “he got together

a group of twelve music-loving noblemen and each guaranteed a

contribution to defray the expenses of performance and pay an honorarium

to the composer.” And Haydn set jubilantly and, withal, reverently to

work. He “spent much time over it, because he intended it to last a long

time.”

The labor gave him extraordinary happiness. It answered his inmost

wants. Here he could give the freest possible rein to all that inborn

optimism of his nature. Always profoundly religious, as free from doubt

and skepticism as a child, his reverence was as sincere as it was sunny.

Here he walked, literally, “hand in hand with his God”. There came to

the surface, moreover, all those springs of folk-song influence which

were either remembered or subconsciously wrought into the fabric of his

being. And he was now working on a newer and larger scale than hitherto.

“Never was I so devout as when composing ‘The Creation’” he afterwards

said. “I knelt down every day and prayed to God to strengthen me in my

work.” If his inspiration ever threatened to grow sluggish “I rose from

the pianoforte and began to say my rosary”. This cure, he insisted,

never failed.

The curious aspect of “The Creation” is that, though composed to a

German translation of the English text, it is one of those rare

masterpieces which actually sound better in a translation than in the

original. The answer to this springs probably from the circumstance that

“The Creation” is, in point of fact, an Anglo-Saxon heritage. An

examination of numerous details of its setting and declamation make it

clear that, almost subconsciously, Haydn has set and accompanied the

English words in more subtly revealing fashion than the German.

Similarly, Haydn achieved in the whole work that effect at which he was

aiming. Writing to her daughter, the Princess Eleanore Liechtenstein

said of the oratorio, “One has to shed tears about the greatness, the

majesty, the goodness of God. The soul is uplifted. One cannot but love

and admire.”

The first performance of “The Creation” was given at the palace of

Prince Schwarzenberg in Vienna on April 29, 1798. Only invited guests

attended this and the second performance, though the mobs outside were

so great that extra detachments of police had to be summoned. Haydn

conducted, not from a keyboard, but in the modern way, with a baton. The

rendering was superb, the audience enraptured. Haydn himself said later:

“One moment I was as cold as ice, the next I seemed on fire. More than

once I was afraid I should have a stroke.” “The Creation” promptly

spread over the world. In England it “was to prove so unfailing an

attraction that proceeds from it, mostly given to charitable

institutions, by far surpassed even the receipts from the London benefit

concerts that once had seemed so extraordinary to Haydn”. In Paris

Bonaparte was on his way to hear a performance of it when a bomb

exploded in the street through which he was passing, narrowly missing

his carriage. In America it took root in short order.

The score deserves, in reality, a much more detailed scrutiny than can

be given here. The introduction, the “Representation of Chaos”, does not

receive the attention it actually merits. There is a warmth of color to

the writing, particularly to the woodwind, which is something new in

Haydn. And the closing bars of the amazing page are the more startling

because they provide a foretaste of one of the most striking passages in

Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”. It may be mentioned, in passing, that

this is by no means the only time when Haydn affords an amazing

Wagnerian presage.

The great and even more celebrated moment in the opening choral number

of the oratorio is the passage “Let there be Light and there was Light”.

From a thin, gray C minor we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sudden and

mighty C major chord—an unmistakable sunburst in tone. In all music this

tremendous moment has not its like unless it be a similar episode—also a

sunrise and by curiously related means—at the opening of Richard

Strauss’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. From the very first this moment in

“The Creation” overpowered the listeners and after a century and a half

it has lost not a vestige of its glory. At his last appearance in a

concert hall, Haydn, only a few weeks from his end, was taken to a

performance of his work. At this episode the old master pointed upwards

with the words “Not from me—from there, above, comes everything!”

The strain of unending toil was beginning to tell on Haydn, though the

amazing aspect of it is that these latest works of his do not betray the

slightest diminution of freshness or inventive powers. Yet on June 12,

1799, he wrote to Breitkopf und Härtel a letter which deserves

attention: “My business unhappily expands with my advancing years, and

it almost seems as if, with the decrease of my mental powers, my

inclination and impulse to work increase. Oh God! how much yet remains

to be done in this splendid art, even by a man like myself! The world,

indeed, daily pays me many compliments, even on the fervor of my latest

works; but no one can believe the strain and effort it costs me to

produce them, inasmuch as time after time my feeble memory and the

unstrung state of my nerves so completely crush me to earth, that I fall

into the most melancholy condition. For days afterwards I am incapable

of formulating one single idea, till at length my heart is revived by

providence, and I seat myself at the piano and begin once more to hammer

away at it. Then all goes well again, God be praised. I only wish and

hope that the critics may not handle my ‘Creation’ with too great

severity and be too hard on it. They may possibly find the musical

orthography faulty in various passages, and perhaps other things also,

which for so many years I have been accustomed to consider as minor

points, but the genuine connoisseur will see the real cause as readily

as I do, and willingly ignore such stumbling blocks. This, however, is

entirely _entre nous_; or I might be accused of conceit and arrogance,

from which, however, my Heavenly Father has preserved me all my life

long.”

Haydn had still a prodigious amount of work before him. Chief of all was

another full length oratorio, “The Seasons”, based on James Thomson’s

didactic poem. Here again the Baron Van Swieten edited and translated,

though he made use of several German poems in addition to Thomson’s (of

which he altered the “unhappy” ending). The composer worked for three

years on “The Seasons”, not completing it till 1801. It seems to have

tested his powers sorely. It was no less optimistic a document than “The

Creation”, but by and large an outspoken Nature piece (conceived in

Rousseau’s “Back to Nature” philosophy), yet with only transient

religious undertones and without the genuinely Biblical quality of “The

Creation”. Still, the truly amazing part of “The Seasons” is its

incessant vitality, the charm of its pictorial aspect and the unending

freshness of its inspiration. All the same, the magnificent work made

unmistakable inroads on Haydn’s vitality. He paid for its success with

his health and was in the habit of saying, from now on, “‘The Seasons’

has given me the death blow!” Actually, he had suffered a physical

breakdown of a sort shortly after one of the productions of “The

Creation”. He had to take to his bed and, intermittently, the flow of

his inspiration threatened to halt. But invariably he would recover,

both physically and mentally. He revised his earlier “Seven Last Words”

as an oratorio; he arranged 250 Scotch folksongs for the Edinburgh

publisher, George Thomson; the number of his string quartets increased.

Performances of “The Creation” multiplied everywhere. Honors poured in

upon him from all quarters. He was warmly invited to come to Paris and

his old pupil, Pleyel, was dispatched to fetch him. Fortunately, Haydn

spared himself the exertions of such a trip. Still, France struck a

medal in his honor, which gave the master no end of pleasure; and he

received the warmest expressions of affection from the inhabitants of

the little Baltic island of Rügen, where a performance of “The Creation”

was given. He even strove to be his own publisher and sought

subscriptions for the score of the oratorio. His friends rallied

magnificently to his aid—the English royal family, the Empress of

Austria, the innumerable friends from his native country and from

Britain (England as much as Austria now claimed him as one of her very

own!). Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton visited Eszterháza and it is said

that for two days the Lady “would not budge from Haydn’s side”, while

Nelson gave him a gold watch in exchange for the master’s pen!

The great composition of this later period of Haydn’s life is beyond

dispute his patriotic anthem, “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser”—the

Austrian hymn, as, through thick and thin, it has remained. That, too,

was indirectly a product of his English experiences! He had always been

stirred in London by “God Save the King” and it became his ambition to

provide something similar for his own nation. The great melody that

resulted bears a distinct resemblance to a Croatian folksong of the

Eisenstadt region, “Zalostna zarucnica”, which certain musicologists

maintain served as the inspiration for Haydn’s melody, though the

derivation has not been definitely established. But others than

Austrians have made the song their own. The Germans, for instance,

consorted it to a poem by Hoffmann von Fallersleben and thereby it

became “Deutschland über alles”; the English-speaking nations put it to

churchly uses and made of it the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee are

Spoken”.

While he was still engaged in exacting creative work he set a schedule

for himself which he appears to have followed rigorously. A daily plan

of activities (written by Elssler, Dr. Geiringer surmises) furnishes a

picture of “Herr von Haydn’s” routine. He was living in a house he had

bought in the “Gumpendorfer” district of Vienna. We read that “in the

summertime he rose at 6.30 A.M. First he shaved, which he did for

himself up to his 73rd year, and then he completed dressing. If a pupil

were present, he had to play his lesson on the piano to Herr von Haydn,

while the master dressed. All mistakes were promptly corrected and a new

task was then set. This occupied an hour and a half. At 8 o’clock sharp,

breakfast had to be on the table, and immediately after breakfast Haydn

sat down at the piano improvising and drafting sketches of some

composition. From 8 o’clock to 11.30 his time was taken up in this way.

At 11.30 calls were received or made, or he went for a walk until 1.30.

The hour from 2 to 3 was reserved for dinner, after which Haydn

immediately did some little work in the house or resumed his musical

occupations. He scored the morning’s sketches, devoting three to four

hours to this. At 8 P.M. Haydn usually went out and at 9 he came home

and sat down to write a score or he took a book and read until 10 P.M.

At that time he had supper, which consisted of bread and wine. Haydn

made a rule of eating nothing but bread and wine at night and infringed

it only on sundry occasions when he was invited to supper. He liked gay

conversation and some merry entertainment at the table. At 11.30 he went

to bed, in his old age even later. Wintertime made no difference to the

schedule, except that Haydn got up half an hour later.”

* * *

But despite this pleasant and comfortable routine Haydn was now

beginning to age rapidly. On December 26, 1803, he conducted for the

last time and, characteristically, for a hospital fund, the work he

directed being the “Seven Last Words”. He wrote two movements of a

string quartet, but by 1806, he had given up all idea of finishing it

and, as a conclusion, added a few bars of a song he had written in the

past few years, “Der Greis”, which begins “Hin ist alle meine Kraft, alt

und schwach bin ich” (“Gone is all my strength, old and weak am I”).

Friends and admirers in ever increasing numbers sought him out to pay

their respects. There came Cherubini, the Abbé Vogler, the violinist

Baillot, Pleyel, members of the Weber family, Mme. Bigot—a friend of

Beethoven and afterwards one of the piano teachers of Felix and Fanny

Mendelssohn; Hummel, the widow of Mozart, the Princess Eszterházy, the

actor, Iffland.

In 1805 a rumor gained currency that Haydn had died. The world was

shocked. Cherubini even composed a cantata on Haydn’s passing; Kreutzer

a violin concerto based on themes from Haydn’s works, while in Paris a

special memorial concert was arranged and Mozart’s Requiem was to be

given. Suddenly there came a letter from the master saying that “he was

still of this base world.” And he thanked his French admirers for their

well-meant gestures adding “had I only known of it in time, I would have

traveled to Paris to conduct the Requiem myself!” Johann Wenzel

Tomaschek told how Haydn greeted any visitor who might drop in: “He sat

in an armchair, very much dressed up. A powdered wig with sidelocks, a

white neckband with a bold buckle, a white richly embroidered waistcoat

of heavy silk, in the midst of which shone a splendid jabot, a dress of

fine coffee-colored cloth with embroidered cuffs, black silk breeches,

white silk hose, shoes with large silver buckles curved over the instep,

and on a little table next to him a pair of white kid gloves made up his

attire.”

He made one last public appearance. It was at a performance of “The

Creation” given at the Vienna University in celebration of the master’s

76th birthday. About the only person of prominence not present was

Prince Eszterházy; but he at least sent his carriage to bring the master

to the concert! At the hall were assembled not alone the high nobility

but all the most distinguished musicians of the capital, among them

Beethoven, Salieri, Hummel, Gyrowetz. Salieri conducted. The

concertmaster was Franz Clement, for whom Beethoven wrote his violin

concerto. The French ambassador, seeing Haydn wearing the gold medal of

the Parisian Concerts des Amateurs, exclaimed: “This medal is not

enough; you should receive all the medals that France can distribute!”

The Princess Eszterházy not only sat next to the master but wrapped her

own shawl about him. It was on this occasion that Haydn made his

historic remark when the audience burst into applause at the sublime

passage “And there was Light.” As the concert progressed he became

visibly excited and it was thought advisable to take him home. As Haydn

left the auditorium Beethoven knelt down before him and reverently

kissed his hand and brow. Before the old man finally vanished from view

he turned one last time and lifted his hand in blessing on the

assemblage.

* * *

By the spring of 1809 the Napoleonic wars were again devastating

Austria. The bombardment of the western suburbs of Vienna brought the

battle uncomfortably close to Haydn’s home. Nevertheless, the master

refused to leave and when a bomb fell close to the Gumpendorfer house

the old man reassured his frightened servants with the words: “Children,

don’t be frightened; where Haydn is, nothing can happen to you!” But the

continuous noise and excitement shook the invalid’s nerves so severely

that he took to his bed and left it only once. This was to be carried to

his piano, there to play three times in succession and with the deepest

possible feeling his own Austrian hymn, as if to defy those hostile

powers unwilling to let him die in peace. On the same day, however, he

was visited by a French officer, Clément Sulémy, who called to pay his

respects to the composer of “The Creation” and who, before he left, sat

down at the piano and sang the aria “In Native Worth” “in so manly and

so sublime a style, with so much truth of expression and musical

sentiment” that Haydn embraced him and said he had never heard the air

delivered in so masterly a fashion. Sulémy fell in battle the same day,

a fact which the composer, fortunately, never learned.

But his strength was now quite gone. He could only whisper to those

about him: “Children, be comforted, I am well.” Then he lapsed into

unconsciousness and shortly after midnight, May 31, 1809, he passed.

Napoleon saw to it that a military guard of honor was stationed at his

door. At his obsequies not only the cultural world of Vienna but also

the highest French military officials were present. And Mozart’s Requiem

was sung.

* * *

The story cannot be ended without an allusion to its macabre epilogue.

Haydn was laid to rest in the Hundsturm Cemetery. But soon afterwards

Prince Eszterházy received permission to reinter the master in

Eisenstadt. There were lengthy delays, however, and in 1814 Sigismund

Neukomm was shocked to find the tomb in a state of dilapidation. He

placed on it a marble slab with Haydn’s favorite quotation from Horace,

“Non omnis moriar” (“I shall not wholly die”), set as a five part canon.

Six years later the Duke of Cambridge remarked to Prince Eszterházy “How

fortunate was the man who employed this Haydn in his lifetime and now

possesses his mortal remains!” The Prince said nothing, but experienced

a sharp twinge of conscience. So he gave orders for the exhumation and

the reburial in the Eisenstadt Bergkirche, where Haydn had conducted a

number of his masses. When the coffin was opened the officials were

appalled to find a body without a head! It developed that a certain Carl

Rosenbaum, once a secretary to Prince Eszterházy, and a penitentiary

official, one Johann Peter, had bribed the Viennese gravedigger, to

steal the skull which they wanted for phrenological experiments. Peter

had made an elaborately decorated box (with windows and a satin cushion)

for the gruesome relic. The outraged Prince sent the police to Peter,

who, meantime had given the skull to Rosenbaum. The police were quite as

unsuccessful at the Rosenbaum house, for the singer, Therese Gassmann

Rosenbaum, promptly hid the skull in her mattress and went to bed,

pretending illness. The hideous farce went a step further, when

Rosenbaum, expecting a bribe, substituted the head of some unidentified

old man. When Rosenbaum died he left Haydn’s skull to Peter, obligating

him to bequeath it to the museum of the Society of the Friends of Music,

in Vienna, where it was preserved since 1895.

It was reported that the Nazis, after the Austrian Anschluss in 1938,

proposed to bury the head in Haydn’s coffin at Eisenstadt. Whether they

carried out this plan is not known to the present writer.

COMPLETE LIST OF RECORDINGS

_by_

THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY

OF NEW YORK