But all this is anticipating. When Haydn settled at Eszterháza 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 Eszterháza as his valet, and whom Haydn instantly secured for his orchestra and treated as a brother. Still another was a cellist of uncommon gifts, Joseph Weigl. Haydn obtained the musical results he wanted, but always with the discretion of a born diplomat. Never had he to fight his “superiors”, after the manner of such stormy petrels as Bach, Handel, Beethoven. His musicians (he always referred to them as his “children”) 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.’”
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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 Creation” and “The Seasons”), the ripest fruits of his old age. If physically Haydn developed late, the same is true of his creative genius. Musically and otherwise it appeared for some time as if his brother, Michael, would surpass him; and if Joseph had died soon after entering the Eszterházy service it may be seriously questioned if the world would have felt it had been deprived of an irreplaceable master.
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In more ways than one the sumptuous palace of Eszterháza was the best possible home for Haydn’s art. Prince Eszterházy, great as were his demands on Haydn, did his art a service by allowing him to experiment and thus “forcing him to become original”. He would hardly have become “original” in the way he did had he been obliged to earn his bread wandering about Vienna, for he was differently constituted than, let us say, such an unmistakably Viennese soul as Schubert. Haydn’s early masters (let us rather say “models”) were not men of imposing creative dimension. Johann Sebastian Bach died while Haydn was still a youth, his work had gone out of fashion and was unobtainable in Vienna for years to come. But the influence of Philipp Emanuel Bach was vastly stronger at the time than that of his father and Haydn, as we have seen, felt its impact. Guido Adler, for one, names as Haydn’s early masters minor composers like Georg Reutter, Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Georg Matthias Monn. There is evidence that he knew the music of Ignaz Holzbauer, Johann Stamitz and the Sammartini brothers. Basically more important for Haydn’s early style was the changed taste which pervaded the musical world, supplanting the intricate polyphonic style by homophony and the decorative pleasings of the so-called style galant.
It was some time before he can be said to have earned the title of “father of the symphony” (or, in the deepest sense, of the sonata or the string quartet). The early symphonies of Haydn seem much closer to the concerto grosso of the Baroque period than to the later “Paris” and “London” symphonies. The musical form which occupied Haydn perhaps most of all was the string quartet, of which as many as 83 were enumerated in a catalogue of his works Haydn prepared in 1805. “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.”
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In 1766 Gregorius Werner died and Haydn was officially appointed Capellmeister of the Eszterházy orchestra. He had by now brought the ensemble to a high state of perfection. Besides the cellist Weigl (who later joined the Vienna court orchestra) Haydn could boast, in addition to “brother Luigi” Tomasini, as concertmaster, the fine cellists, Franz Xaver Marteau and Anton Kraft. Prince Eszterházy, who paid even higher salaries than the imperial court at Vienna, could have his pick and choice of any artist he wanted. The schedule at Eszterháza called for two opera performances a week, two weekly concerts and, in Prince Nicholas’ private salon, plenty of chamber music. The prince greatly enjoyed playing the baryton, a now obsolete form of viola da gamba. It was uncommonly difficult and the Prince enjoyed it all the more for that reason. Haydn had his work cut out for him supplying his employer with new music for the instrument. Once he thought he would give Prince Nicholas pleasure by learning to play the baryton himself and declared he was ready to play it for his Serene Highness. This time he had miscalculated—his Highness returned no more than a glacial stare! Nicholas, moreover, insisted he must have all the most difficult passages in anything Haydn might write for him. The cellist, Kraft, was once given a particularly easy part in a baryton duet to perform with the prince, who cut short any possible argument with the words: “It is no credit to you to play better than I do; it is your duty.”
The normal schedule of the artists was, of course, far heavier and more complicated, when distinguished visitors arrived for longer or shorter sojourns. Under the circumstances, neither Haydn nor anyone else, had a chance to be bored at Eszterháza. Now and then, however, these birds in a golden cage longed for a little freedom. 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 (if not exclusively an artistic one) 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 Eszterháza. 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 Eszterháza.”
All the same, the advantages of Haydn’s life at Eszterháza, 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....”