Failing Strength
Little is left to be told of the years which followed the production of "The Seasons." Haydn never really recovered from the strain which that last great effort of his genius had entailed. From his letters and the reminiscences of his friends we can read only too plainly the story of his growing infirmity. Even in 1799 he spoke of the diminution of his mental powers, and exclaimed: "Oh, God! how much yet remains to be done in this splendid art, even by a man like myself!" In 1802 he wrote of himself as "a gradually decaying veteran," enjoying only the feeble health which is "the inseparable companion of a gray-haired man of seventy." In December 1803 he made his last public exertion by conducting the "Seven Words" for the hospital fund at the Redoutensaal, and shortly afterwards wrote sadly of his "very great weakness." In 1804 he was asked to direct a performance of "The Creation," but declined on the score of failing strength. Gradually he withdrew himself almost entirely from the outside world, his general languor broken only by the visits of friends and by moods of passing cheerfulness. Cherubini, the Abbe Vogler, Pleyel, the Weber family, Hummel, Reichardt, and many others came to see him. Visits from members of the Esterhazy family gave him much pleasure. Mozart's widow also brought her son Wolfgang, to beg his blessing on the occasion of his first public concert in April 1805, for which he had composed a cantata in honour of Haydn's seventy-third birthday. But the homage of friends and admirers could not strengthen the weak hands or confirm the feeble knees. In 1806 Dies notes that his once-gleaming eye has become dull and heavy and his complexion sallow, while he suffers from "headache, deafness, forgetfulness and other pains." His old gaiety has completely gone, and even his friends have become a bore to him. "My remaining days," he said to Dies, "must all be spent in this lonely fashion.... I have many visitors, but it confuses me so much to talk to them that at last I scarcely know what I am saying and only long to be left in peace." The condition of a man of naturally genial and optimistic temperament can easily be imagined from all this—perhaps even more from the fact of his having a card printed to hand to inquirers who called, bearing the words:
Hin ist alle meine Kraft; Alt and schwach bin ich.
[Fled for ever is my strength; Old and weak am I.]
Last Works
But while Haydn was thus suffering from the natural disabilities of his years, he was not wholly divorced from his art. It is true that nothing of any real importance came from his pen after "The Seasons," but a good deal of work of various kinds was done, some of which it is impossible for the biographer to ignore. One rather novel undertaking carries us back to the end of 1799, about which time he was first asked by George Thomson, the friend of Burns, to write accompaniments for certain Scottish songs to be published in Thomson's well-known national collections. The correspondence which followed is interesting in many ways, and as it is not noticed in any other biography of Haydn, we propose to deal with it here. [The letters passed through the present writer's hands some five years ago, when he was preparing his Life of George Thomson(1898). They are now in the British Museum with the other Thomson correspondence.]
A Scottish Admirer
George Thomson engaged at one time or other the services of Beethoven, Pleyel, Weber, Hummel, Bishop and Kozeluch. But Haydn was his first love. A genius of the kind, he writes in 1811 "never before existed and probably never will be surpassed." He is "the inimitable Haydn," the "delectable," the "father of us all," and so on. On the other hand, Haydn was proud of what he did for Thomson. "I boast of this work," he said, "and by it I flatter myself my name will live in Scotland many years after my death." Nay, if we may trust an authority cited by Thomson, so highly did he think of "the symphonies and accompaniments which he composed for my melodies as to have the original score of each framed and hung all over the walls of his bedroom." Little wonder that Thomson "loved the dear old man" and regretted that his worldly circumstances did not allow him to erect a statue to the composer at his own expense!
We have called this writing of symphonies and accompaniments for George Thomson a novel undertaking. It was, however, only novel in the sense of being rather out of Haydn's special "line." He had already been employed on work of the kind for the collection of William Napier, to which he contributed the accompaniments of 150 songs. Later on, too (in 1802-1803), he harmonized and wrote accompaniments for sixty-five airs, for which he received 500 florins from Whyte of Edinburgh. The extent of his labours for George Thomson we shall now proceed to show.
Song Accompaniments