The remaining years of the period covered by this chapter being almost totally devoid of incident, we may pause to notice briefly two of the better-known symphonies of the time—the "Toy" Symphony and the more famous "Farewell." The former is a mere jeu d'esprit, in which, with an orchestral basis of two violins and a bass, the solo instruments are all of a burlesque character. Mozart attempted something of a kindred nature in his "Musical joke," where instruments come in at wrong places, execute inappropriate phrases, and play abominably out of tune. This kind of thing does not require serious notice, especially in the case of Haydn, to whom humour in music was a very different matter from the handling of rattles and penny trumpets and toy drums.
The "Farewell" Symphony
The "Farewell" Symphony has often been described, though the circumstances of its origin are generally mis-stated. It has been asserted, for example, that Haydn intended it as an appeal to the prince against the dismissal of the Capelle. But this, as Pohl has conclusively shown, is incorrect. The real design of the "Farewell" was to persuade the prince to shorten his stay at Esterhaz, and so enable the musicians to rejoin their wives and families. Fortunately, the prince was quick-witted enough to see the point of the joke. As one after another ceased playing and left the orchestra, until only two violinists remained, he quietly observed, "If all go, we may as well go too." Thus Haydn's object was attained—for the time being! The "Farewell" is perfectly complete as a work of art, but its fitness for ordinary occasions is often minimized by the persistent way in which its original purpose is pointed out to the listener.
Free from Esterhaz
Haydn's active career at Esterhaz may be said to have closed with the death, on September 28, 1790, of Prince Nicolaus. The event was of great importance to his future. Had the prince lived, Haydn would doubtless have continued in his service, for he "absolutely adored him." But Prince Anton, who now succeeded, dismissed the whole Capelle, retaining only the few members necessary for the carrying on of the church service, and Haydn's occupation was practically gone. The new prince nominally held the right to his services, but there was no reason for his remaining longer at the castle, and he accordingly took up his residence in Vienna. Thus free to employ his time as he considered best, Haydn embraced the opportunity to carry out a long-meditated project, and paid the first of his two visits to London. With these we enter upon a new epoch in the composer's life, and one of great interest to the student and lover of music.
CHAPTER V. FIRST LONDON VISIT—1791-1792
English Music about 1791—Salomon—Mozart and Haydn—Terms for London—Bonn and Beethoven—Haydn Sea-Sick—Arrives in London—An Enthusiastic Welcome—Ideas of the Metropolis—At Court—Unreasoning Rivalries—Temporarily eclipsed—Band and Baton—A Rehearsal Incident—Hanover Square Rooms—Hoops and Swords—The "Surprise" Symphony—Gallic Excitement—New Compositions—Benefit and Other Concerts—Haydn on Handel—Oxford Doctor of Music—The "Oxford" Symphony—Relaxations—Royalty again—Pleyel—Close of Season—Herschel—Haydn at St Paul's—London Acquaintances—Another Romance—Mistress Schroeter—Love-Letters—Haydn's Note-Book.
English Music about 1791
Haydn came to England in 1791. It may occur to the reader to ask what England was doing in music at that time, and who were the foremost representatives of the art. The first question may be partially answered from the literature of the period. Thus Jackson, in his Present State of Music in London, published the year after Haydn's arrival, remarks that "instrumental music has been of late carried to such perfection in London by the consummate skill of the performers that any attempt to beat the time would be justly considered as entirely needless." Burney, again, in his last volume, published in 1789, says that the great improvement in taste during the previous twenty years was "as different as civilized people from savages"; while Stafford Smith, writing in 1779, tells that music was then "thought to be in greater perfection than among even the Italians themselves." There is a characteristic John Bull complacency about these statements which is hardly borne out by a study of the lives of the leading contemporary musicians. Even Mr Henry Davey, the applauding historian of English music, has to admit the evanescent character of the larger works which came from the composers of that "bankrupt century." Not one of these composers—not even Arne—is a real personality to us like Handel, or Bach, or Haydn, or Mozart. The great merit of English music was melody, which seems to have been a common gift, but "the only strong feeling was patriotic enthusiasm, and the compositions that survive are almost all short ballads expressing this sentiment or connected with it by their nautical subjects." When Haydn arrived, there was, in short, no native composer of real genius, and our "tardy, apish nation" was ready to welcome with special cordiality an artist whose gifts were of a higher order.