[Figure: a musical score excerpt]
The autograph score, dated 1761, and preserved at Eisenstadt, is superscribed, "In Nomine Domini," and closes with Haydn's customary "Laus Deo" after the final signature The work is in the usual four movements. The symphonies of this date included also those known in England as "Le Matin" and "Le Soir," the one beginning—
[Figure: a musical score excerpt] and the other—
[figure: a musical score excerpt]
Of the string quartets and other instrumental compositions of the period nothing need be said. In all these the composer was simply feeling his way towards a more perfect expression, and as few of them are now performed, their interest for us is almost entirely antiquarian.
CHAPTER IV. ESTERHAZ—1766-1790
Haydn's Fame extending—Haydn and Mozart compared—Esterhaz—Its Puppet Theatre—A Busy Life—Opera at Esterhaz—First Oratorio—Opponents and Intriguers—"L'Isola Disabitata"—A Love Episode—Correspondence with Artaria and Forster—Royal Dedicatees—The "Seven Words"—The "Toy" and "Farewell" Symphonies.
To crowd the details of a professional career covering close upon a quarter of a century into a single chapter would, in the case of most of the great composers, be an altogether impossible task. In Haydn's case the difficulty is to find the material for even so slight a record. His life went on smoothly, almost sleepily, as we should now think, in the service of his prince, without personal incident and with next to no disturbance from the outside world. If he had not been a genius of the first rank the outside world would, in all probability, never have heard of his existence.
Haydn's Fame extending