CHAPTER VIII
1795-1809
During his stay in London, Haydn's good wife had asked him to buy her that house in the suburbs of Vienna which would come in so conveniently when he left her a widow. The request was not entirely wasted—that is, he bought the house, made some additions, and from 1797 lived in it himself. Here he composed The Creation, The Seasons, and the bulk of his church music; and here he died.
It is said that the notion of composing the Austrian National Hymn was suggested to Haydn by the Prussian National Hymn which George I. had brought to England with him from his beloved Hanover; but however that may be, and whether the abominable melody known then and now as "God Save the King" inspired him or not, he determined to write a tune for his countrymen, and he did. On the Emperor's birthday in 1799 the new tune was played in every theatre in the Empire. Next to the Marseillaise, it is certainly the finest thing of the sort in existence.
Salomon had wanted Haydn to write an oratorio in London, and handed him a copy of a libretto of The Creation, which one Lidley had compiled from the Bible and Milton's "Paradise Lost" for Handel. The proposal came to nothing then, but when Haydn got comfortably settled down in Vienna van Swieten repeated the suggestion. This van Swieten had been a parasitic patron of Mozart. He was an enthusiast for the older-fashioned forms of music, and he had concerts of oratorio in an institution of which he was librarian. Haydn passed on Lidley's book to him, van Swieten had it translated and doctored to suit his own taste, and Haydn set to work. He faced the task with a degree of seriousness and solemnity which the music would never suggest. In April of 1798 it was given for the first time, privately, at the Schwartzenburg Palace; in March of the following year it was given publicly at the National Theatre. From the beginning it was an electrical success, and was immediately performed everywhere. Haydn had been guaranteed 500 ducats for it, but gained very much more. In the end, in the way I have previously mentioned, it became the property of the Tonkünstler Societät of Vienna. In England it was for over half a century the "Messiah's" one great rival. Lately it has dropped out of the repertories of London and provincial choral societies. Fashions in sacred music, like fashions in popular preachers, have a trick of changing.
No sooner was The Creation fairly launched on a fairly long career than van Swieten wanted another oratorio. Somehow—or perhaps naturally—he associated oratorio with England, and as he could not get the music from us, he did as badly as he could—he came here for the poetry. The words of nearly all the oratorios are ridiculous. Those of The Creation are no worse than the words of many by Handel. Van Swieten, however, did his honest best to provide Haydn with a downright silly book for his last work, and it must be admitted that by going to James Thomson's Seasons he succeeded. Like The Creation, it rapidly became popular in Germany, Austria, and England. It went out sooner than The Creation, and went out, I suspect, also like The Creation, never to return. It was given in April, 1802, at the Schwartzenburg Palace.
During the period after his return from England—or, more exactly, from 1796 till 1802—Haydn wrote most of his bigger church works. They may be sufficiently discussed here in a few lines; for, though they are still much sung in churches where the Pope's edicts are regarded merely as things to be laughed at, musically they are by no means of the same importance as his symphonies. Like all the Viennese school of church composers, Haydn thought nothing of the canons, and, indeed—also like the others—he seemed generally to think very little of the meaning of the words. He was serious and sincere enough, no doubt, but the man was a peasant, and in many respects his mind was a peasant's. He had quite a plausible excuse or reason to give for the note of jollity which prevails in his Masses. When he thought of God, he said, his heart was filled with joy, and that joy found a voice in his music. He spoke in perfect good faith, but with a little more brains he would have had other feelings than joy in his heart at the more solemn moments of the Mass. However, he had not, so he missed giving us music to compare with the finest parts of his symphonies and quartets. What he did write would serve well for the Empire Music Hall to-day were it not so entirely monopolized by churches like the Italian in Hatton Garden, and in its day it was highly thought of. The fact that the Princes of Esterhazy did not like to be made to feel uncomfortable in church had perhaps something to do with Haydn always feeling elated when he was going to write a mass—use is second nature. Not that there are no fine things in his sacred music; only they are rare, and the spirit of the whole is utterly undevotional. After all, being the man he was, having the mission he had in life to carry out, it may be questioned whether he could have done anything nobler, in which case it is a pity he touched church music. However, it is easily forgotten, and will be some day.
Haydn wrote The Seasons, as it were, under protest, and he always declared that it gave him the finishing touch. He composed little more, but arranged accompaniments for Scotch songs for one Mr. Whyte, of Edinburgh. His powers failed fast. The last time he conducted in public, The Seven Words—now with the words—was the piece. This was in 1807. He was now without a rival in Vienna. Gluck had been dead twenty years, and Mozart had died in 1791; Beethoven was regarded as a great eccentric genius who would not rightly apply his undoubted talents. The last time Haydn was seen in public at all was on November 27, 1808. He was far too weak to dream of conducting. He was carried to the hall, and great ladies disputed as to who should be allowed to throw their wraps over him to protect him against the cold. He was taken away after the first part. He still lingered on a while. Next year—1809—Vienna was bombarded by the French, who had done the same thing in 1805, and when the victorious army came in a French officer visited him and sang "In Native Worth." On May 26 Haydn called in his servants and played the National Hymn three times; he was then carried to his bed, and on May 29, he died.
He was buried at Hundsthurm Churchyard with military honours, the French invaders helping, on June 15. Mozart's Requiem was sung later, in memoriam. In 1820 Prince Esterhazy had the remains, or such of them as had not been stolen, transferred to Eisenstadt.
