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HERBERT F. PEYSER

Joseph Haydn Servant and Master

Written for and dedicated to the RADIO MEMBERS of THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY of NEW YORK

Copyright 1950 THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY of NEW YORK 113 West 57th Street New York 19. N. Y.

FOREWORD

H. F. P.

When Mendelssohn first heard Haydn's "Grand Organ Mass" he found it "scandalously merry." Now, this work, composed at Eszterh?za 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.

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 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 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" , but Maria Haydn saw to it that ends met, as they had to, considering there were twelve children . 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" . He had a wine cellar, farmland and cattle. He and his wife were of Austro-German origin, not Hungarians or Croats.

Franz Joseph 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" 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 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 . 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 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' , 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 Sch?nbrunn. 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!

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 , 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."

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.

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" . 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.

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!" . 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:

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 Eszterh?zy, 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 Eszterh?zys, 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 Eszterh?zy 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 Eszterh?zy, remembering the composer and conductor of the enchanting symphony, acted at the first news of the Morzin d?bacle 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 Eszterh?zys he was to do much--though by no means all--of his greater work. The palace of Eszterh?za was a modest place when the composer first joined the Eszterh?zy 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 Eszterh?zy ... 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 still lived "to experience the joy of seeing his son in the princely blue uniform braided with gold."

Prince Paul Eszterh?zy was gathered to his fathers in 1762. Haydn became the servitor of an Eszterh?zy 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. Eszterh?za 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 Eszterh?zy 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'infedelt? delusa". The Empress was so delighted that she is said to have remarked: "If I want to enjoy good opera, I go to Eszterh?za." 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 , "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 Eszterh?za 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 Eszterh?za 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 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 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 Eszterh?zy service it may be seriously questioned if the world would have felt it had been deprived of an irreplaceable master.

It was some time before he can be said to have earned the title of "father of the symphony" . 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."

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 Eszterh?za. 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 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 Eszterh?za. 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 Eszterh?za."

All the same, the advantages of Haydn's life at Eszterh?za, 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...."

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 Eszterh?za 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 Eszterh?za. 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 Eszterh?za 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" and "Il Mondo della Luna" .

"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 Eszterh?za. 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 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.

In Vienna the number of Haydn's intimates steadily increased. As the years of his sojourn at Eszterh?za 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 . 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 Eszterh?zy'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 Eszterh?za, 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 Eszterh?za. 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 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."

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 Eszterh?zy, 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 Eszterh?zys 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 , 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. . 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 "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."

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