Emanuel Bach, we have said, was drawn in two opposite directions. Haydn and Mozart, though they were spared this dual influence, had, however, to face a difficulty. They found a form ready to hand, yet one which, as we have attempted to show, required modifications of various kinds. The former had to make the old fit in with the new; but the latter, the new with the old. Hence their inspiration was handicapped. They were to some extent constructing as well as creating; and then their sense of order, balance, and proportion was so strong, that they often turned out movements more remarkable for their clearness of form than for the strength of their contents.
Mozart profited by Haydn's early attempts, and his best sonatas are vastly superior to most of Haydn's. After Mozart's death, and even for some years before, Haydn seemed to have caught much of the spirit of the younger composer. He showed this especially in his London symphonies, but also in one or two of his later sonatas. "This mutual reaction," says Jahn, "so generously acknowledged by both musicians, must be taken into account in forming a judgment on them."
Haydn, though fully conscious of his own powers, practically acknowledged the superiority of his brother-artist. On learning of Mozart's death, he exclaimed: "Posterity will not see such talent for a century to come!"—a prophecy which, at the time it was uttered, seemed likely of fulfilment.
CHAPTER VI
PREDECESSORS OF BEETHOVEN
I. Muzio Clementi
Muzio Clementi, born at Rome in 1752, was brought to England by Alderman Beckford, father of the author of Vathek, and at Fonthill Abbey he had leisure to study the works of Handel, John Sebastian Bach, Emanuel Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, and Paradies. Clementi, like Scarlatti, was a virtuoso; but although both indulged largely in technical display, they were true and intelligent artists. In Scarlatti, the balance between his musical ideas and the form in which they were presented was almost perfect; in Clementi, virtuosity often gained the ascendency over virtue. With the latter, however, as indeed with E. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and many other composers, the necessity of earning a living, and therefore of writing for "long" ears, mixed with the love of fame, produced works which, like the old Eden tree, contained both good and evil. To judge such great men really fairly, the chaff ought to be separated from the wheat; and the chaff ought to be thoroughly removed, even at the risk of sometimes losing a portion of wheat.
To the true lover of music, choice selections are more precious than complete collections; the latter are, of course, necessary to those whose business it is to study the rise and development of the various composers. The pianoforte sonatas of Mozart, Haydn, Dussek, and Clementi might be reduced to very moderate compass. To suggest that any one of Beethoven's thirty-two should be removed out of its place would now sound flat blasphemy; but art progresses, and some even now are falling into oblivion. The catalogue of music performed at the Popular Concerts during the history of the past thirty-five years shows pretty clearly which sonatas of Beethoven are likely to live long, and which not. But to return to Clementi. He published his first three sonatas (Op. 2, Nos. 1-3) in 1770, the year in which Beethoven was born; and the influence which he exerted over that master was considerable. In Beethoven's library were to be found many sonatas of Clementi, and the master's predilection for them is well known. The world seldom renders full justice to men who prepared the way for greater than themselves; Pachelbel, Böhm, and Buxtehude, the immediate predecessors of Bach, and, again, Emanuel Bach, to whom Haydn was so indebted, and whose works were undoubtedly studied by Beethoven, are notable examples. This is, of course, perfectly natural: the best only survives; but musicians who take serious interest in their art ought, from time to time, to look back and see how much was accomplished and suggested by men who, in comparison with their mighty contemporaries and successors, are legitimately ranked as second-rate. Among such, Clementi holds high place. Beethoven over-shadowed the Italian composer; but the harsh judgment expressed by Mozart[77] has contributed not a little, we imagine, to the indifference now shown to the Clementi sonatas.[78] The judgment was a severe one; but Otto Jahn relates how Clementi told his pupil Berger that, "at the period of which Mozart writes, he devoted his attention to brilliant execution, and in particular to double runs and extemporised passages." And, again, Berger himself was of opinion that the sonata selected for performance by Clementi at the memorable contest with Mozart in presence of the Emperor Joseph the Second (December 1781), was decidedly inferior to his earlier compositions of the same kind. The sonata in question was the one in B flat (B. & H., No. 61; Holle, No. 37), of which the opening theme commences in the same manner as the Allegro of the Overture to the Magic Flute. Mozart suffered much from the predominant Italian influence at court, and the "like all the Italians" in the letter just mentioned shows, to say the least, a bitter spirit. But the letter was a private one, probably hastily written. The judgment expressed was formed from an inferior work; in any case, it must not be taken too seriously. Mozart, by the way, was not the only composer who failed to render justice to his contemporaries.