I
We have prefaced the last chapter with a review of the political and literary forces leading up to the classic period. A brief survey of social conditions may similarly aid the reader in supplying a background to the important characters of this period and the circumstances of their careers. First, we shall avail ourselves of the picturesque account given by George Henry Lewes in his ‘Life of Goethe.’ ‘Remember,’ he says, ‘that we are in the middle of the eighteenth century. The French Revolution is as yet only gathering its forces together; nearly twenty years must elapse before the storm breaks. The chasm between that time and our own is vast and deep. Every detail speaks of it. To begin with science—everywhere the torch of civilization—it is enough to say that chemistry did not then exist. Abundant materials, indeed, existed, but that which makes a science, viz., the power of prevision based on quantitative knowledge, was still absent; and alchemy maintained its place among the conflicting hypotheses of the day.... This age, so incredulous in religion, was credulous in science. In spite of all the labors of the encyclopedists, in spite of all the philosophic and religious “enlightenment,” in spite of Voltaire and La Mettrie, it was possible for Count St. Germain and Cagliostro to delude thousands; and Casanova found a dupe in the Marquise d’Urfé, who believed he could restore her youth and make the moon impregnate her![36] It was in 1774 that Messmer astonished Vienna with his marvels of mystic magnetism. The secret societies of Freemasons and Illuminati, mystic in their ceremonies and chimerical in their hopes—now in quest of the philosopher’s stone, now in quest of the perfectibility of mankind—a mixture of religious, political, and mystical reveries, flourished in all parts of Germany, and in all circles.
‘With science in so imperfect a condition we are sure to find a corresponding poverty in material comfort and luxury. High-roads, for example, were only found in certain parts of Germany; Prussia had no chaussée till 1787. Mile-stones were unknown, although finger-posts existed. Instead of facilitating the transit of travellers, it was thought good political economy to obstruct them, for the longer they remained the more money they spent in the country. A century earlier stage coaches were known in England; but in Germany public conveyances were few and miserable; nothing but open carts with unstuffed seats. Diligences on springs were unknown before 1800,’ ... and we have the word of Burney and of Mozart that travel by post was nothing short of torture![37]
If we examine into the manners, customs, and tastes of the period we are struck with many apparently absurd contradictions. Men whose nature, bred in generations of fighting, was brutal in its very essence outwardly affected a truly inordinate love of ceremony and lavish splendor. The same dignitaries who discussed for hours the fine distinctions of official precedence, or the question whether princes of the church should sit in council on green seats or red, like the secular potentates, would use language and display manners the coarseness of which is no longer tolerated except in the lowest spheres of society. While indulging in the grossest vulgarities and even vices, and while committing the most wanton cruelties, this race of petty tyrants expended thousands upon the glitter and tinsel with which they thought to dazzle the eyes of their neighbors. While this is more true of the seventeenth than of the eighteenth century, and while Europe was undergoing momentous changes, conditions were after all not greatly improved in the period of Haydn and Mozart. The graceful Italian melody which reigned supreme at the Viennese court, or the glitter of its rococo salons, found a striking note of contrast in the broad dialect of Maria Theresa and the ‘boiled bacon and water’ of Emperor Joseph’s diet. A stronger paradox than the brocade and ruffled lace of a courtier’s dress and the coarse behavior of its wearer could hardly be found.
The great courts of Europe, Versailles, Vienna, etc., were imitated at the lesser capitals in every detail, as far as the limits of the princes’ purses permitted. As George Henry Lewes says of Weimar, ‘these courts but little corresponded with those conceptions of grandeur, magnificence, or historical or political importance with which the name of court is usually associated. But, just as in gambling the feelings are agitated less by the greatness of the stake than by the variations of fortune, so, in social gambling of court intrigue, there is the same ambition and agitation, whether the green cloth be an empire or a duchy. Within its limits Saxe-Weimar, for instance, displayed all that an imperial court displays in larger proportions. It had its ministers, its chamberlains, pages, and sycophants. Court favor and disgrace elevated and depressed as if they had been imperial smiles or autocratic frowns. A standing army of six hundred men, with cavalry of fifty hussars, had its war department, with war minister, secretary, and clerk. Lest this appear too ridiculous,’ Lewes adds that ‘one of the small German princes kept a corps of hussars, which consisted of a colonel, six officers and two privates!’ Similarly every prince, great or petty, gathered about him, for his greater glory, the disciples of the graceful arts. Not a count, margrave, or bishop but had in his retinue his court musicians, his organists, his court composer, his band and choir, all of whom were attached to their master by ties of virtually feudal servitude, whose social standing was usually on a level with domestic servants and who were often but wretchedly paid. We have had occasion to refer to a number of the more important centres, such as Berlin, where Frederick the Great had Johann Quantz, Franz Benda, and Emanuel Bach as musical mentors; Dresden, where Augustus the Third had Hasse and Porpora;[38] Stuttgart, where Karl Eugen gave Jommelli a free hand; Mannheim, where Karl Theodor gathered about him that genial band of musical reformers with Stamitz at their head; and Salzburg, where Archbishop Sigismund maintained Michael Haydn, Leopold Mozart, and many another talented musician.
As for the greater courts, they became the nuclei for aggregations of men of genius, to many of whom the world owes an everlasting debt of gratitude, but who often received insufficient payment, and who, in some cases, even suffered indignities at the hands of their masters which are calculated to rouse the anger of an admiring posterity. London and Paris were, of course, as they had been for generations, the most brilliant centres—the most liberal and the richest in opportunities for musicians of talent or enterprise. At the period of which we speak the court of George II (and later George III) harbored Johann Christian Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, and Pietro Domenico Paradies; at the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Rameau was in his last years, while Gluck and Piccini were the objects of violent controversy, while Philidor, Monsigny, and Grétry were delighting audiences with opéra comique, and while a valiant number of instrumentalists, like Gossec, Gaviniès, Schobert, and Eckhard, were building up a French outpost of classicism. Capitals which had but recently attained international significance, like Stockholm and St. Petersburg, assiduously emulated the older ones; at the former, for instance, Gustavus III patronized Naumann, and at the latter Catherine II entertained successively Galuppi, Traetto, Paesiello, and Sarti.
But Vienna was now the musical capital of Europe. It was the concentrated scene of action where all the chief musical issues of the day were fought out. There the Mannheim school had its continuation, soon after its inception; there Haydn and Mozart found their greatest inspiration—as Beethoven and Schubert did after them—it remained the citadel of musical Germany, whose supremacy was now fairly established. It is significant that Burney, in writing the results of his musical investigations on the continent, devotes one volume each to Italy and France but two to Germany, notwithstanding his strong Italian sympathies. However, the reason for this is partly the fact that Germany was to an Englishman still somewhat of a wilderness, and that the writer felt it incumbent upon him to give some general details of the condition of the country. We can do no better than quote some of his observations upon Vienna in order to familiarize the reader with the principal characters of the drama for which it was the stage.[39]
After describing the approach to the city, which reminds him of Venice, and his troubles at the customs, where his books were ‘even more scrupulously read than at the inquisition of Bologna,’ he continues: ‘The streets are rendered doubly dark and dirty by their narrowness, and by the extreme height of the houses; but, as these are chiefly of white stone and in a uniform, elegant style of architecture, in which the Italian taste prevails, as well as in music, there is something grand and magnificent in their appearance which is very striking; and even those houses which have shops on the ground floor seem like palaces above. Indeed, the whole town and its suburbs appear at the first glance to be composed of palaces rather than of common habitations.’
Now for the life of the city. ‘The diversions of the common people ... are such as seem hardly fit for a civilized and polished nation to allow. Particularly the combats, as they are called, or baiting of wild beasts, in a manner much more savage and ferocious than our bull-baiting, etc.’ The better class, of course, found its chief amusement in the theatres, but the low level of much of this amusement may be judged from the fact that rough horse-play was almost necessary to the success of a piece. Shortly before Burney’s visit the customary premiums for actors who would ‘voluntarily submit to be kicked and cuffed’ were abolished, with the result that theatres went bankrupt ‘because of the insufferable dullness and inactivity of the actors.’ By a mere chance Burney witnessed a performance of Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, which as a play shocked his sensibilities, but he speaks in admiring terms of the orchestra, which played ‘overtures and act-tunes’ by Haydn, Hoffman, and Vanhall. At another theatre the pieces were so full of invention that it seemed to be music of some other world.
Musically, also, the mass at St. Stephen’s impressed him very much: ‘There were violins and violoncellos, though it was not a festival,’ and boys whose voices ‘had been well cultivated.’ At night, in the court of his inn, two poor scholars sang ‘in pleasing harmony,’ and later ‘a band of these singers performed through the streets a kind of glees in three and four parts.’ ‘Soldiers and common people,’ he says, ‘frequently sing in parts, too,’ and he is forced to the conclusion that ‘this whole country is certainly very musical.’
Through diplomatic influence our traveller is introduced to the Countess Thun (afterwards Mozart’s patron), ‘a most agreeable lady of very high rank, who, among other talents, possesses as great skill in music as any person of distinction I ever knew; she plays the harpsichord with that grace, ease, and delicacy which nothing but female fingers can arrive at.’ Forthwith he meets ‘the admirable poet Metastasio, and the no less admirable musician Hasse,’ as well as his wife, Faustina, both very aged; also ‘the chevalier Gluck, one of the most extraordinary geniuses of this, or perhaps any, age or nation,’ who plays him his Iphigénie, just completed, while his niece, Mlle. Marianne Gluck, sang ‘in so exquisite a manner that I could not conceive it possible for any vocal performance to be more perfect.’ He hears music by ‘M. Hoffman, an excellent composer of instrumental music’; by Vanhall, whom he meets and whose pieces ‘afforded me such uncommon pleasure that I should not hesitate to rank them among the most complete and perfect compositions for many instruments which the art of music can boast(!)’; also some ‘exquisite quartets by Haydn, executed in the utmost perfection’; and he attends a comic opera by ‘Signor Salieri, a scholar of M. Gassman,’ at which the imperial family was present, his imperial majesty being extremely attentive ‘and applauding very much.’[40] ‘His imperial majesty’ was, of course, Joseph II, who we know played the violoncello, and was, in Burney’s words, ‘just musical enough for a sovereign prince.’ The entire imperial family was musical, and the court took its tone from it. All the great houses of the nobility—Lichtenstein, Lobkowitz, Auersperg, Fürnberg, Morzin—maintained their private bands or chamber musicians. Our amusing informant, in concluding his account of musical Vienna, says: ‘Indeed, Vienna is so rich in composers and incloses within its walls such a number of musicians of superior merit that it is but just to allow it to be among German cities the imperial seat of music as well as of power.’
It need hardly be repeated that Italian style was still preferred by the society of the period, just as Italian manners and language were affected by the nobility. Italian was actually the language of the court, and how little German was respected is seen from the fact that Metastasio, the man of culture par excellence, though living in Vienna through the greater part of his life, spoke it ‘just enough to keep himself alive.’ Haydn, like many others, Italianized his name to ‘Giuseppe’ and Mozart signed himself frequently Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart!
This, then, is the city in which Haydn and Mozart were to meet for the first time just one year after Burney’s account. Though the first was the other’s senior by twenty-four years their great creative periods are virtually simultaneous. They date, in fact, from this meeting, which marks the beginning of their influence upon each other and their mutual and constant admiration. Both already had brilliant careers behind them as performers and composers, and it becomes our duty now to give separate accounts of these careers.
C. S.
II
JOSEPH HAYDN
The boundaries of Hungary, the home of one of the most musical peoples of the world, lies only about thirty miles from Vienna. Here, it is said, in every two houses will be found three violins and a lute. Men and women sing at their work; children are reared in poverty and song. In such a community, in the village of Rohrau, near the border line between Austria and Hungary, lived Matthias Haydn, wagoner and parish sexton, with Elizabeth, his wife. They were simple peasant people, probably partly Croatian in blood, with rather more intelligence than their neighbors. After his work was done Matthias played the harp and Elizabeth sang, gathering the children about her to share in the simple recreation. Franz Joseph, the second of these children, born March 31, 1732, gave signs of special musical intelligence, marking the time and following his mother in a sweet, childish voice at a very early age. When he was six he was put in the care of a relative named Frankh, living in Hainburg, for instruction in violin and harpsichord playing, and in singing. Frankh seems to have been pretty rough with the youngster, but his instruction must have been good as far as it went, for two years later he was noticed by Reutter, chapel master at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and allowed to enter the choir school.
Reutter was considered a great musician in his day—he was ennobled in 1740—but he did not distinguish himself by kind treatment of little Joseph, who was poorly clad, half starved, and indifferently taught. The boy, however, seems, even at this early age, to have had a definite idea of what he wanted, and doggedly pursued his own path. He got what instruction he could from the masters of the school, purchased two heavy and difficult works on thoroughbass and counterpoint, spent play hours in practice on his clavier, and filled reams of paper with notes. He afterwards said that he remembered having two lessons from von Reutter in ten years. When he was seventeen years old his voice broke, and, being of no further service to the chapel master, he was turned out of the school on a trivial pretext.
The period that followed was one that even the sweet-natured man must sometimes have wished to forget. He was without money or friends—or at least so he thought—and it is said he spent the night after leaving school in wandering about the streets of the city. Unknown to himself, however, the little singer at the cathedral had made friends, and with one of the humbler of these he found a temporary home. Another good Viennese lent him one hundred and fifty florins—a debt which Haydn not only soon paid, but remembered for sixty years, as an item in his will shows. He soon got a few pupils, played the violin at wedding festivals and the like, and kept himself steadily at the study of composition. He obtained the clavier sonatas of Emanuel Bach and mastered their style so thoroughly that the composer afterward sent him word that he alone had fully mastered his writings and learned to use them.
At twenty Haydn wrote his first mass, and at about the same time received a considerable sum for composing the music to a comic opera. He exchanged his cold attic for a more comfortable loft which happened to be in the same house in which the great Metastasio lived. The poet was impressed by Haydn’s gifts and obtained for him the position of music master in an important Spanish family, resident in Vienna.
In this way, step by step, the fortunes of the young enthusiast improved. He made acquaintances among musical folk, and occasionally found himself in the company of men who had mounted much higher on the professional ladder than himself. One of these was Porpora, already successful and of international fame. Porpora was at that time singing master in the household of Correr, the Venetian ambassador at Vienna, and he proposed that Haydn should act as his accompanist and incidentally profit by so close an acquaintance with his ‘method.’ Thus Haydn was included in the ambassador’s suite when they went to the baths of Mannersdorf, on the border of Hungary. At the soirées and entertainments of the grandees at Mannersdorf Haydn met some of the well-known musicians of the time—Bonno, Wagenseil, Gluck, and Ditters—becoming warmly attached to the last-named. His progress in learning Porpora’s method, however, was not so satisfactory. The mighty man had no time for the obscure one; the difficulty was obvious. But Haydn, as always, knew what he wanted and did not hesitate to make himself useful to Porpora in order to get the instruction he needed. He was young and had no false pride about being fag to a great man for a purpose. His good-natured services won the master over; and so Haydn was brought into direct connection with the great exponent of Italian methods and ideas.
In 1755 he wrote his first quartet, being encouraged by a wealthy amateur, von Fürnberg, who, at his country home, had frequent performances of chamber music. Haydn visited Fürnberg and became so interested in the composition of chamber music that he produced eighteen quartets during that and the following year. About this time he became acquainted with the Count and Countess Thun, cultivated and enthusiastic amateurs, whose names are remembered also in connection with Mozart, Gluck, and Beethoven. Haydn instructed the Countess Thun both in harpsichord playing and in singing, and was well paid for his services.
The same Fürnberg that drew the attention of Haydn to the composition of string quartets also recommended him to his first patron, Count Morzin, for the position of chapel master and composer at his private estate in Bohemia, near Pilsen. It was there, in 1759, that Haydn wrote his first symphony. He received a salary of about one hundred dollars a year, with board and lodging. With this munificent income he decided to marry, even though the rules of his patron permitted no married men in his employ.
Haydn’s choice had settled on the youngest daughter of a wig-maker of Vienna named Keller; but the girl, for some unknown reason, decided to take the veil. In his determination not to lose so promising a young man, the wig-maker persuaded the lover to take the eldest daughter, Maria Anna, instead of the lost one. The marriage was in every way unfortunate. Maria Anna was a heartless scold, selfish and extravagant, who, as her husband said, cared not a straw whether he was an artist or a shoemaker. Haydn soon gave up all attempts to live with her, though he supplied her with a competence. She lived for forty years after their marriage, and shortly before she died wrote to Haydn, then in London, for a considerable sum of money with which to buy a small house, ‘as it was a very suitable place for a widow.’ For once Haydn refused both the direct and the implied request, neither sending her the money nor making her a widow. He outlived her, in fact, by nine years, purchased the house himself after his last visit to London and spent there the remainder of his life.
To go back, however, to his professional career. Count Morzin was unfortunately soon obliged to disband his players and the change that consequently occurred was one of the important crises of Haydn’s life. He was appointed second chapel master to Prince Anton Esterhàzy, a Hungarian nobleman, whose seat was at Eisenstadt. Here Haydn was to spend the next thirty years, here the friendships and pleasures of his mature life were to lie, and here his genius was to ripen.
The Esterhàzy band comprised sixteen members at the time of Haydn’s arrival, all of them excellent performers. Their enthusiasm and support did much to stimulate the new chapel master, even as his arrival infused a new spirit into the concerts. The first chapel master, Werner, a good contrapuntal scholar, took the privilege of age and scoffed at Haydn’s new ideas, calling him a ‘mere fop.’ The fact that they got on fairly well together is surely a tribute to Haydn’s good nature and genuine humbleness of spirit. The old prince soon died, being succeeded by his brother, Prince Nicolaus. When Werner died some five years later Haydn became sole director. Prince Nicolaus increased the orchestra and lent to Haydn all the support of a sympathetic lover of music, as well as princely generosity. He prepared for himself a magnificent residence, with parks, lakes, gardens, and hunting courses, at Esterhàz, where royal entertainments were constantly in progress. Daily concerts were given, besides operas and special performances for all sorts of festivals. The seclusion of the country was occasionally exchanged for brief visits to Vienna. In 1773 the Empress Maria Theresa—she who, as Electoral Princess, had studied singing with Porpora—was entertained at Esterhàz and heard the first performance of the symphony which bears her name. In 1780 Haydn wrote, for the opening of a new theatre at Esterhàz, an opera which was also performed before royalty at Vienna. He composed the ‘Last Seven Words’ in 1785, and in the same year Mozart dedicated to him six quartets in terms of affectionate admiration.
By the death of Prince Nicolaus, in 1790, Haydn lost not only a patron but a friend whom he sincerely loved. His life at Esterhàz was, on the other hand, full of work and conscientious activity in conducting rehearsals, preparing for performances, and in writing new music. On the other hand, it was curiously restricted in scope, isolated from general society, and detached from all the artistic movements of his period. His relations with the prince were genial and friendly, apparently quite unruffled by discord. Esterhàzy, though very much the grandee, was indulgent, and not only allowed his chapel master much freedom in his art, but also recognized and respected his genius. The system of patronage never produced a happier example of the advantages and pleasures to be gained by both patron and follower; but, after all, a comment of Mr. Hadow seems most pertinent to the situation: ‘It is worthy of remark that the greatest musician ever fostered by a systematic patronage was the one over whose character patronage exercised the least control.’ It is Haydn, of course, who is the subject of this remark.
There was, at that time, an enterprising violinist and concert manager, Johann Peter Salomon, travelling on the continent in quest of ‘material’ for his next London season. As soon as news of the death of Prince Nicolaus reached Salomon, he started for Vienna with the determination to take Haydn back with him to London. Former proposals for a season in London had always been ignored by Haydn, who considered himself bound not to abandon his prince. Now that he was free, Salomon’s persuasions were successful. Haydn, nearly sixty years of age, undertook his first long journey, embarking on the ocean he had never before seen, and going among a people whose language he did not know. He was under contract to supply Salomon with six new symphonies.
They reached London early in the year 1791, and Haydn took lodgings, which seemed very costly to his thrifty mind, with Salomon at 18 Great Pulteney street. The concerts took place from March till May, Salomon leading the orchestra, which consisted of thirty-five or forty performers, while Haydn conducted from the pianoforte. The enterprise was an immediate success. Haydn’s symphonies happened to hit the taste of the time, and his fame as composer was supplemented by great personal popularity. People of the highest rank called upon him, poets celebrated him in verse, and crowds flocked to the concerts.
Heretofore Haydn’s audiences had usually consisted of a small number of people whose musical tastes were well cultivated but often conventional; now he was eagerly listened to by larger and more heterogeneous crowds, whose enthusiasm reacted happily upon the composer. He wrote not only the six symphonies for the subscription concerts, but a number of other works—divertimenti for concerted instruments, a nocturne, string quartets, a clavier trio, songs, and a cantata—and was much in demand for other concerts. At the suggestion of Dr. Burney, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Music. The prince of Wales invited him to visit at one of the royal residences; his portrait was painted by famous artists; everybody wished to do him honor. The directors of the professional concerts tried to induce him to break his engagements with Salomon, but, failing in this, they engaged a former pupil of Haydn’s, Ignaz Pleyel from Strassburg, and the two musicians conducted rival concerts. The rivalry, however, was wholly friendly, so far as Haydn and his pupil were concerned. He visited Windsor and the races, and was present at the Handel commemoration in Westminster Abbey, where he was much impressed by a magnificent performance of ‘The Messiah.’
After a stay of a year and a half in London Haydn returned to Vienna, travelling by way of Bonn, where he met Beethoven, who afterward came to him for instruction. Arriving in Vienna in July, 1792, he met with an enthusiastic reception. Early in 1794 Salomon induced him, under a similar contract, to make another journey to London, and to supply six new works for the subscription concerts. Again Haydn carried all before him. The new symphonies gained immediate favor; the former set was repeated, and many pieces of lesser importance were performed. The famous virtuosi, Viotti and Dussek, took part in the benefits for Haydn and Salomon. Haydn was again distinguished by the court, receiving even an invitation to spend the summer at Windsor, which he declined. In every respect the London visits were a brilliant success, securing a competence for Haydn’s old age, additional fame, and a number of warm personal friendships whose memory delighted him throughout the remaining years of his life.
On his return to Vienna fresh honors awaited the master, who was never again to travel far from home. During his absence a monument and bust of himself had been placed in a little park at Rohrau, his native village. Upon being conducted to the place by his friends he was much affected, and afterwards accompanied the party to the modest house in which he was born, where, overcome with emotion, he knelt and kissed the threshold. In Vienna concerts were arranged for the production of the London symphonies, and many new works were planned. One of the most interesting of these was the ‘National Hymn,’ composed in 1797, to words written by the poet Hauschka. On the birthday of the Emperor Franz II the air was sung simultaneously at the National Theatre in Vienna and at all the principal theatres in the provinces. Haydn also used the hymn as the basis of one of the movements in the Kaiser Quartet, No. 77.
The opportunity afforded Haydn in London of becoming more familiar with the work of Handel had a striking effect upon his genius, turning it toward the composition of oratorios. His reputation was high, but it was destined to soar still higher. Through Salomon, Haydn had received a modified version of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ compiled by Lidley. This, translated into German by van Swieten, formed the libretto of ‘The Creation,’ composed by Haydn in a spirit of great humbleness and piety. It was first performed in Vienna in 1798 and immediately produced a strong impression, the audience, as well as the composer, being deeply moved. Choral societies were established for the express purpose of giving it, rival societies in London performed it during the season of 1800, and it long enjoyed a popularity scarcely less than that of ‘The Messiah.’ Even with this important work his energy was not dulled. Within a short time after the completion of ‘The Creation’ he composed another oratorio, ‘The Seasons,’ to words adapted from Thomson’s poem. This also sprang into immediate favor, and at the time of its production, at least, gained quite as much popularity as ‘The Creation.’
But the master’s strength was failing. After ‘The Seasons’ he wrote but little, chiefly vocal quartets and arrangements of Welsh and Scottish airs. On his seventy-third birthday Mozart’s little son Wolfgang, aged fourteen, composed a cantata in his honor and came to him for his blessing. Many old friends sought out the aged man, now sick and often melancholy, and paid him highest honors. His last public appearance was in March, 1808, at a performance of ‘The Creation’ at the university in Vienna, conducted by Salieri. Overcome with fatigue and emotion Haydn was carried home after the performance of the first part, receiving as he departed the respectful homage of many distinguished people, among whom was Beethoven. From that time his strength waned, and, on May 31, 1809, he breathed his last. He was buried in a churchyard near his home; but, in 1820, at the command of Prince Anton Esterhàzy, his body was removed to the parish church at Eisenstadt, where so many years of his tranquil life had been spent.
It is of no small value to consider Haydn the man, before even Haydn the musician, for many of the qualities which made him so respected and beloved as a man were the bedrock upon which his genius was built. There was little of the obviously romantic in his life, nearly all of which was spent within a radius of thirty miles; but it glows with kindness, good temper, and sterling integrity. He was loyal to his emperor and his church; thrifty, generous to less fortunate friends and needy relatives, generous, also, with praise and appreciation. Industrious and methodical in his habits, he yet loved a jest or a harmless bit of fooling. He was droll and sunny tempered, modest in his estimate of himself, but possessing at the same time a proper knowledge of his powers. He was not beglamored by the favor of princes; and, while steadfast in the pursuit of his mission, seemed, nevertheless, to have been without ambition, in the usual sense, even as he was without malice, avarice, or impatience. Good health and good humor were the accompaniment of a gentle, healthy piety. These qualities caused him to be beloved in his lifetime; and they rank him, as a man, forever apart from the long list of geniuses whose lives have been torn asunder by passions, by undue sensitiveness, by excesses, or overweening ambition—all that is commonly understood by ‘temperament.’ The flame of Haydn’s temperament burned clearly and steadily, even if less intensely; and the record of his life causes a thrill of satisfaction for his uniform and consistent rightness, his few mistakes.
It remains now to consider the nature of the service rendered by this remarkable man to his art, through the special types of composition indissolubly connected with his name. These are the symphony and the quartet.