Face and Features
Something of Haydn's person and character will have already been gathered from the foregoing pages. He considered himself an ugly man, and, in Addison's words, thought that the best expedient was "to be pleasant upon himself." His face was deeply pitted with small-pox, and the nose, large and aquiline, was disfigured by the polypus which he had inherited from his mother. In complexion he was so dark as to have earned in some quarters the familiar nickname of "The Moor." His underlip was thick and hanging, his jaw massive. "The mouth and chin are Philistine," wrote Lavater under his silhouette, noting, at the same time, "something out of the common in the eyes and the nose." The eyes were dark gray. They are described as "beaming with benevolence," and he used to say himself: "Anyone can see by the look of me that I am a good-natured sort of fellow."
In stature he was rather under the middle height, with legs disproportionately short, a defect rendered more noticeable by the style of his dress, which he refused to change with the changes of fashion. Dies writes: "His features were regular, his expression animated, yet, at the same time, temperate, gentle and attractive. His face wore a stern look when in repose, but in conversation it was smiling and cheerful. I never heard him laugh out loud. His build was substantial, but deficient in muscle." Another of his acquaintances says that "notwithstanding a cast of physiognomy rather morose, and a short way of expressing himself, which seemed to indicate an ill-tempered man, the character of Haydn was gay, open and humorous." From these testimonies we get the impression of a rather unusual combination of the attractive and the repulsive, the intellectual and the vulgar. What Lavater described as the "lofty and good" brow was partly concealed by a wig, with side curls, and a pig-tail, which he wore to the last. His dress as a private individual has not been described in detail, but the Esterhazy uniform, though frequently changing in colour and style, showed him in knee-breeches, white stockings, lace ruffles and white neckcloth. This uniform he never wore except when on actual duty.
Portraits
After his death there were many portraits in chalks, engraved, and modeled in wax. Notwithstanding his admission of the lack of personal graces, he had a sort of feminine objection to an artist making him look old. We read that, in 1800, he was "seriously angry" with a painter who had represented him as he then appeared. "If I was Haydn at forty," said he, "why should you transmit to posterity a Haydn of seventy-eight?" Several writers mention a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and even give details of the sittings, but he never sat to Reynolds, whose eyesight had begun to fail before Haydn's arrival in England. During his first visit to London Hoppner painted his portrait at the special request of the Prince of Wales. This portrait was engraved by Facius in 1807, and is now at Hampton Court. Engravings were also published in London by Schiavonetti and Bartolozzi from portraits by Guttenbrunn and Ott, and by Hardy from his own oil-painting. A silhouette, which hung for long at the head of his bed, was engraved for the first time for Grove's Dictionary of Music. This was said by Elssler, his old servant, to have been a striking likeness. Of the many busts, the best is that by his friend Grassi, the sculptor.
[figure: Haydn's silhouette by Lavater]
Social Habits
Very little has been recorded of his social habits. Anything like excess in wine is not once mentioned; but it is easy to see from his correspondence that he enjoyed a good dinner, and was not insensible to creature comforts. Writing to Artaria from Esterhaz in 1788, he says: "By-the-bye, I am very much obliged to you for the capital cheese you sent me, and also the sausages, for which I am your debtor, but shall not fail when an opportunity offers to return the obligation." In a subsequent letter to Frau von Genzinger he comically laments the change from Vienna to Esterhaz: "I lost twenty pounds in weight in three days, for the effect of my fare at Vienna disappeared on the journey. 'Alas! alas!' thought I, when driven to eat at the restaurateurs, 'instead of capital beef, a slice of a cow fifty years old; instead of a ragout with little balls of force-meat, an old sheep with yellow carrots; instead of a Bohemian pheasant, a tough grill; instead of pastry, dry apple fritters and hazelnuts, etc.! Alas! alas! would that I now had many a morsel I despised in Vienna! Here in Esterhaz no one asks me, Would you like some chocolate, with milk or without? Will you take some coffee, with or without cream? What can I offer you, my good Haydn? Will you have vanille ice or pineapple?' If I had only a piece of good Parmesan cheese, particularly in Lent, to enable me to swallow more easily the black dumplings and puffs! I gave our porter this very day a commission to send me a couple of pounds." Even amid the social pleasures and excitements of London, where he was invited out six times a week and had "four excellent dishes" at every dinner, he longs to be back in his native land so that he may have "some good German soup."
Partial to Pretty Women
We read that in Austria he "never associated with any but the musicians, his colleagues," a statement which cannot be strictly true. In London he was, as we have seen, something of a "lion," but it is doubtful if he enjoyed the conventional diversions of the beau monde. Yet he liked the company of ladies, especially when they were personally attractive. That he was never at a loss for a compliment may perhaps be taken as explaining his frequent conquests, for, as he frankly said himself, the pretty women "were at any rate not tempted by my beauty." Of children he was passionately fond, a fact which lends additional melancholy to his own unhappy and childless home life.