Herbert F. Peyser

“ 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 ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 34 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”. ”

“ At last, young Haydn, out of patience, extended his hands to the two ends of the harpsichord and 17 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 37 bother about the “Infernal Beast”, who, though she still walked the earth, scarcely existed for him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 31 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.” ”

“ Juliana Franck was not at all like his mother. If she expected the boy to help in the 10 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”. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. 22 Here was a man reared in the grand tradition of the Eszterházys, always noted for their encouragement of music and other arts. ”

“ Nor can one do more than allude to a few of the stage pieces though these operas, composed for the most part for the festivities arranged by the Eszterházy princes, do not pretend to fill a role in the history of the lyric drama comparable to those of Mozart or even to the intermezzi and the buffas of the 18th Century Italians or the Singspiele of men like Dittorsdorf and Hiller. Neither is there room to consider the technical advancements achieved by Haydn in the sonata or symphonic form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 32 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. ”

“ 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 57 Johann Peter, had bribed the Viennese gravedigger, to steal the skull which they wanted for phrenological experiments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”