The great and even more celebrated moment in the opening choral number of the oratorio is the passage “Let there be Light and there was Light”. From a thin, gray C minor we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sudden and mighty C major chord—an unmistakable sunburst in tone. In all music this tremendous moment has not its like unless it be a similar episode—also a sunrise and by curiously related means—at the opening of Richard Strauss’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. From the very first this moment in “The Creation” overpowered the listeners and after a century and a half it has lost not a vestige of its glory. At his last appearance in a concert hall, Haydn, only a few weeks from his end, was taken to a performance of his work. At this episode the old master pointed upwards with the words “Not from me—from there, above, comes everything!”

The strain of unending toil was beginning to tell on Haydn, though the amazing aspect of it is that these latest works of his do not betray the slightest diminution of freshness or inventive powers. Yet on June 12, 1799, he wrote to Breitkopf und Härtel a letter which deserves attention: “My business unhappily expands with my advancing years, and it almost seems as if, with the decrease of my mental powers, my inclination and impulse to work increase. Oh God! how much yet remains to be done in this splendid art, even by a man like myself! The world, indeed, daily pays me many compliments, even on the fervor of my latest works; but no one can believe the strain and effort it costs me to produce them, inasmuch as time after time my feeble memory and the unstrung state of my nerves so completely crush me to earth, that I fall into the most melancholy condition. For days afterwards I am incapable of formulating one single idea, till at length my heart is revived by providence, and I seat myself at the piano and begin once more to hammer away at it. Then all goes well again, God be praised. I only wish and hope that the critics may not handle my ‘Creation’ with too great severity and be too hard on it. They may possibly find the musical orthography faulty in various passages, and perhaps other things also, which for so many years I have been accustomed to consider as minor points, but the genuine connoisseur will see the real cause as readily as I do, and willingly ignore such stumbling blocks. This, however, is entirely entre nous; or I might be accused of conceit and arrogance, from which, however, my Heavenly Father has preserved me all my life long.”

Haydn had still a prodigious amount of work before him. Chief of all was another full length oratorio, “The Seasons”, based on James Thomson’s didactic poem. Here again the Baron Van Swieten edited and translated, though he made use of several German poems in addition to Thomson’s (of which he altered the “unhappy” ending). The composer worked for three years on “The Seasons”, not completing it till 1801. It seems to have tested his powers sorely. It was no less optimistic a document than “The Creation”, but by and large an outspoken Nature piece (conceived in Rousseau’s “Back to Nature” philosophy), yet with only transient religious undertones and without the genuinely Biblical quality of “The Creation”. Still, the truly amazing part of “The Seasons” is its incessant vitality, the charm of its pictorial aspect and the unending freshness of its inspiration. All the same, the magnificent work made unmistakable inroads on Haydn’s vitality. He paid for its success with his health and was in the habit of saying, from now on, “‘The Seasons’ has given me the death blow!” Actually, he had suffered a physical breakdown of a sort shortly after one of the productions of “The Creation”. He had to take to his bed and, intermittently, the flow of his inspiration threatened to halt. But invariably he would recover, both physically and mentally. He revised his earlier “Seven Last Words” as an oratorio; he arranged 250 Scotch folksongs for the Edinburgh publisher, George Thomson; the number of his string quartets increased. Performances of “The Creation” multiplied everywhere. Honors poured in upon him from all quarters. He was warmly invited to come to Paris and his old pupil, Pleyel, was dispatched to fetch him. Fortunately, Haydn spared himself the exertions of such a trip. Still, France struck a medal in his honor, which gave the master no end of pleasure; and he received the warmest expressions of affection from the inhabitants of the little Baltic island of Rügen, where a performance of “The Creation” was given. He even strove to be his own publisher and sought subscriptions for the score of the oratorio. His friends rallied magnificently to his aid—the English royal family, the Empress of Austria, the innumerable friends from his native country and from Britain (England as much as Austria now claimed him as one of her very own!). Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton visited Eszterháza and it is said that for two days the Lady “would not budge from Haydn’s side”, while Nelson gave him a gold watch in exchange for the master’s pen!

The great composition of this later period of Haydn’s life is beyond dispute his patriotic anthem, “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser”—the Austrian hymn, as, through thick and thin, it has remained. That, too, was indirectly a product of his English experiences! He had always been stirred in London by “God Save the King” and it became his ambition to provide something similar for his own nation. The great melody that resulted bears a distinct resemblance to a Croatian folksong of the Eisenstadt region, “Zalostna zarucnica”, which certain musicologists maintain served as the inspiration for Haydn’s melody, though the derivation has not been definitely established. But others than Austrians have made the song their own. The Germans, for instance, consorted it to a poem by Hoffmann von Fallersleben and thereby it became “Deutschland über alles”; the English-speaking nations put it to churchly uses and made of it the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken”.

While he was still engaged in exacting creative work he set a schedule for himself which he appears to have followed rigorously. A daily plan of activities (written by Elssler, Dr. Geiringer surmises) furnishes a picture of “Herr von Haydn’s” routine. He was living in a house he had bought in the “Gumpendorfer” district of Vienna. We read that “in the summertime he rose at 6.30 A.M. First he shaved, which he did for himself up to his 73rd year, and then he completed dressing. If a pupil were present, he had to play his lesson on the piano to Herr von Haydn, while the master dressed. All mistakes were promptly corrected and a new task was then set. This occupied an hour and a half. At 8 o’clock sharp, breakfast had to be on the table, and immediately after breakfast Haydn sat down at the piano improvising and drafting sketches of some composition. From 8 o’clock to 11.30 his time was taken up in this way. At 11.30 calls were received or made, or he went for a walk until 1.30. The hour from 2 to 3 was reserved for dinner, after which Haydn immediately did some little work in the house or resumed his musical occupations. He scored the morning’s sketches, devoting three to four hours to this. At 8 P.M. Haydn usually went out and at 9 he came home and sat down to write a score or he took a book and read until 10 P.M. At that time he had supper, which consisted of bread and wine. Haydn made a rule of eating nothing but bread and wine at night and infringed it only on sundry occasions when he was invited to supper. He liked gay conversation and some merry entertainment at the table. At 11.30 he went to bed, in his old age even later. Wintertime made no difference to the schedule, except that Haydn got up half an hour later.”

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But despite this pleasant and comfortable routine Haydn was now beginning to age rapidly. On December 26, 1803, he conducted for the last time and, characteristically, for a hospital fund, the work he directed being the “Seven Last Words”. He wrote two movements of a string quartet, but by 1806, he had given up all idea of finishing it and, as a conclusion, added a few bars of a song he had written in the past few years, “Der Greis”, which begins “Hin ist alle meine Kraft, alt und schwach bin ich” (“Gone is all my strength, old and weak am I”). Friends and admirers in ever increasing numbers sought him out to pay their respects. There came Cherubini, the Abbé Vogler, the violinist Baillot, Pleyel, members of the Weber family, Mme. Bigot—a friend of Beethoven and afterwards one of the piano teachers of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn; Hummel, the widow of Mozart, the Princess Eszterházy, the actor, Iffland.

In 1805 a rumor gained currency that Haydn had died. The world was shocked. Cherubini even composed a cantata on Haydn’s passing; Kreutzer a violin concerto based on themes from Haydn’s works, while in Paris a special memorial concert was arranged and Mozart’s Requiem was to be given. Suddenly there came a letter from the master saying that “he was still of this base world.” And he thanked his French admirers for their well-meant gestures adding “had I only known of it in time, I would have traveled to Paris to conduct the Requiem myself!” Johann Wenzel Tomaschek told how Haydn greeted any visitor who might drop in: “He sat in an armchair, very much dressed up. A powdered wig with sidelocks, a white neckband with a bold buckle, a white richly embroidered waistcoat of heavy silk, in the midst of which shone a splendid jabot, a dress of fine coffee-colored cloth with embroidered cuffs, black silk breeches, white silk hose, shoes with large silver buckles curved over the instep, and on a little table next to him a pair of white kid gloves made up his attire.”

He made one last public appearance. It was at a performance of “The Creation” given at the Vienna University in celebration of the master’s 76th birthday. About the only person of prominence not present was Prince Eszterházy; but he at least sent his carriage to bring the master to the concert! At the hall were assembled not alone the high nobility but all the most distinguished musicians of the capital, among them Beethoven, Salieri, Hummel, Gyrowetz. Salieri conducted. The concertmaster was Franz Clement, for whom Beethoven wrote his violin concerto. The French ambassador, seeing Haydn wearing the gold medal of the Parisian Concerts des Amateurs, exclaimed: “This medal is not enough; you should receive all the medals that France can distribute!” The Princess Eszterházy not only sat next to the master but wrapped her own shawl about him. It was on this occasion that Haydn made his historic remark when the audience burst into applause at the sublime passage “And there was Light.” As the concert progressed he became visibly excited and it was thought advisable to take him home. As Haydn left the auditorium Beethoven knelt down before him and reverently kissed his hand and brow. Before the old man finally vanished from view he turned one last time and lifted his hand in blessing on the assemblage.

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