Life of Haydn

by Ludwig Nohl

His letters to Frau von Genzinger abound in information about the events of this journey, and, thanks to the detailed investigation of C. F. Pohl in his little book, “Mozart and Haydn in London” (Vienna: 1867), we are now placed in full possession of them, but we shall confine ourselves only to those details which are indispensable to a record of Haydn’s progress.

In Munich, Haydn became acquainted with Cannabich, who had so greatly promoted symphony performances in Germany—an acquaintance which must have been of two-fold interest to the founder of the symphony. In Bonn, particularly, where his music had many friends, and had been played exceedingly often in churches, theaters, public and chamber-concerts (see Beethoven’s Life, Vol. I), he was astonished on one occasion, according to Dies’ narrative. Salomon took him on Christmas night to the mass. “The first chords revealed a work of Haydn’s. Our Haydn regarded it as an accident, though it was very agreeable to him to listen to one of his own works,” it is said. Towards the close, a person approached him and invited him to enter the oratory. Haydn was not a little astonished when he saw that the Elector Maximilian had summoned him. He took him by the hand and addressed his musicians in these words: “Let me make you acquainted with your highly cherished Haydn.” The Elector allowed him time for them to become acquainted, and then invited him to his table. The invitation caused him a little embarrassment, for he and Salomon had arranged a little dinner in their own house. Haydn took refuge in excuses, and thereupon withdrew and betook himself to his residence, where he was surprised by an unexpected proof of the good will of the Elector. At his quiet command, the little dinner had changed into a large one for twelve persons, and the most skillful of the musicians had been invited. Could the Elector’s court organist, Beethoven, have been among the guests? He was at that time twenty years old, and certainly was among the most skillful of the musicians.

Haydn writes about the remainder of the journey and his arrival in London, to his friend in Vienna. He remained on deck during the entire passage, that he might observe to his heart’s content that huge monster, the sea. He might have thought with an ironical smile of the storm in “The Devil on Two Sticks.” He was completely overwhelmed “with the endlessly great city of London, which astonishes me with its varied beauties and wonders,” but it still further broadened his experience to see with his own eyes the representatives of a great free people like those of England. His arrival had already caused a great sensation, and for three days he went the rounds of all the newspapers. After a few days he was invited to an amateur concert, and leaning upon the arm of the director, passed through the hall to the front of the orchestra amid universal applause, “stared at by all and greeted with a multitude of English compliments.” Afterward he was conducted to a table set for two hundred guests, where he was requested to sit at the head, but he declined the honor, since he had already dined out, that noon, and eaten more than usual; but in spite of this he was obliged to drink the harmonious good health of the company in Burgundy.

This brilliancy of welcome characterized Haydn’s London visit until its close. Both socially and as an artist he knew how to win hearts to himself. His countryman, Gyrowetz, introduced him to fashionable families which gave entertainments, where Haydn was the center of attraction. His simple and cordial manner and its great contrast with the imperious manner which the Italian artists assumed upon the strength of their long residence, suited the English, and when he rose from the table, seated himself at the piano and sang the cheerful German songs, all, even the most prejudiced, circulated his fame. Instances like that of the insulting slur of the once so celebrated, but at that time old and conceited, Italian violinist, Giardini, who received the announcement of his visit with the remark, “there is nothing for me to learn from the German dog,” were rare, but Haydn instead of being angry only laughed at his folly. In contrast with such arrogance, he cherished genuine artists, as we know from his association with the great organ-player, Dupuis. Sir G. Smart, so well known to us from “Beethoven’s Life,” relates that he saw him listening with close attention to Dupuis’ playing at St. James church, and that when the latter came out of the chapel, Haydn embraced and kissed him. The unanimous recognition of others’ merits was a natural characteristic of Haydn as well as of Mozart. The newspapers had something to say about him every day, but already that envy and malice began, against which he, like every other one of prominence, had had to contend from youth up. They discovered that his powers were in their decadence, and on that account it was useless to longer expect anything like his earlier productions. And this, too, when the Salomon concerts had commenced and achieved the highest success, since every new work of the master brought him new fame. The Professional Concerts, under the direction of the violinist Cramer, who had offered him an engagement in 1787, were his worst enemies. It was the professors, or the professional musicians, who arranged these, and society rivalry led them to look upon his success with an envious eye. And yet Haydn was present at their first concert of the season which preceded the Salomon concerts, and had complimented them upon performing his symphonies so well without having had the opportunity of hearing them.

Salomon’s first concert met with decided success. It was of special advantage that Haydn in his judicious way knew how to secure a particular freedom of performance from his orchestra. He would flatter his players and delicately mingle blame and praise. He invited the best among them to dine, and besides all this, he took pains to practically explain his ideas to them, so that the result, as Dies emphatically says, was affection and inspiration. He would induce the Italian singers themselves, who sedulously avoided every difficulty and discord, to execute his frequently surprising modulations and intonations. “Never, perhaps, have we had richer musical enjoyment,” says the Morning Chronicle, speaking of the concert, “and the Adagio of his symphony in D was encored—a very rare occurrence.” His opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” for Gallini’s new theater, though nearly completed, was not performed, as the opening of the stage was not allowed. It has numbers of equal merit with the best that Haydn has written, but as a whole it is modeled upon the usual Italian pattern of separate airs. Haydn’s genius revealed itself otherwise in his own special sphere, and except the quartets, the most of his instrumental music which has come down to us had its origin at this time in London, especially the twelve London symphonies. They display in the clearest manner the increased development of his ideas and fancy, the deepening of his thought and the rich and firm handling of instruments which place Haydn on the same plane as Mozart and Beethoven. He had an orchestra which in strength and skill was second to none in the world at that time; at the same time, the efforts to produce artistic impressions, which seize upon the mind and heart, aroused and invigorated his large and sympathetic, if not always really musical, audiences. It was Haydn who first created the love of pure instrumental music in the heart of the great public of London, where vocal music since Handel’s time had been more highly valued than elsewhere, and this, too, not alone for its earnest, but for its humorous moods, which were more readily appreciated by Englishmen. It was, however, his quartets which were sought by the real friends and students of music, and the best of these also were written in and for London.

At the end of May, Haydn attended the great Handel Festival, which had been given every year since 1784, and in which over one thousand musicians took part. Even the sight of the great assemblage was brilliant and magnificent, but beyond all this, he had the opportunity of hearing Handel’s music in its full majesty. More than twenty of his large and minor works were performed, and the powerful personal influence of the master dominated the performance. When the world-renowned “Hallelujah” rose in great waves of sound, and the thousands, with the king at their head, stood up, there was scarcely a dry eye. Haydn, who stood near the king’s box, wept like a child, and completely overcome, exclaimed: “He is the master of us all.” The sublimity of the all-overmastering Eternal he never displays in his own works. He was, so to speak, forced out of the church into life, and never found his way back again to its sublime earnestness, but the religious feeling and simple piety of the heart were active, living principles in Haydn’s nature, and gave to his forms that breath of living creation which transforms them into the “divine likeness.” The perfect innocence and the touching and beautiful earnestness which often appear in his works, come from the same source as Handel’s majestic sublimity. His “Creation” is a still more convincing illustration of this. Its origin was due to the London visit, and many a large and important choral piece bears witness to the fact that Haydn had now met and seen this Handel face to face. He was to him what Sebastian Bach was to Mozart and Beethoven, whom he had not known so well as they. On the 8th of July, 1791, after his brilliant season had come to a close, Haydn received a special mark of distinction. The degree of Doctor of Music was conferred upon him by the University of Oxford. At the last festival concert, when he entered, clad in his black silk doctor’s gown and four-cornered cap, he was enthusiastically received. He seized the skirt of his gown, and held it up with a loud “I thank you,” which simple expression of gratitude was greeted with universal applause. This respect for England served to make him still more famous. Salomon was warranted in announcing, a month later, that they would continue their concerts in the same style as those which had made such a success in the winter.

Meanwhile, an entirely unexpected summons to return to Esterhaz reached him. He was expected to write the opera for a festivity at the Prince’s court. Evidently he could not comply, for he had signed new terms of agreement with Salomon, and thus had to encounter the Prince’s anger for his desertion of duty.

“Alas, I now expect my discharge, but I hope that God will be gracious and help me in some measure to efface my losses by my industry,” he wrote to Frau von Genzinger, September 17, 1791, and this industry was made less burdensome as he had spent the summer in the country, amid beautiful scenery, with a family whose hearts, he writes, resemble the Genzingers. How much must he, who was so accustomed to Nature, have appreciated such a country visit! “I am, God be thanked, in good health, with the exception of my customary rheumatism. I am working industriously, and think every morning, as I walk alone in the woods with my English grammar, of my Creator, of my family, and of all the friends I have left behind,” he writes in his seclusion, which, as we see, brought him the most beautiful outward and inward happiness. Added to this was his consciousness of being free. “O, my dear gracious lady, what a sweet relish there is in absolute liberty,” he writes again; “I have it now in some degree; I appreciate its benefits, although my mind is burdened with more work. The consciousness that I am no longer a servant requites all my toil.” He realized there also a striking confirmation of the happiness of rising “from nothing.” His landlord, a rich banker, was so impressed with his narrative of his youthful trials, that he once swore that he was getting on too well in the world. He realized for the first time that he was not happy. “I have only an abundance and I loathe it,” he exclaimed, and wished he had a pistol that he might shoot himself, an event, however, which did not happen, much to Haydn’s pleasure.

After his return to London he encountered exciting times, for the Professional musicians bent all their energies to surpass the Salomon concerts, and their public assaults had such an extended influence that inquiries came from Vienna about the actual condition of his circumstances. Even Mozart believed these reports and thought he must have depreciated very much. “I can not believe it,” Haydn simply writes, and refers him to his banker, Count Fries, in whose hands he had placed five hundred pounds. “I am aware that there is a multitude of envious persons in London, the most of whom are Italians, but they can not hurt me, for my credit with the people has been settled many years,” he says, and adds with confident feeling: “Those above them are my support.”

As their next move, the Professionals sought to secure him for themselves by higher offers, but he would not break his word or injure his manager, whose outlay had been so large, by the gratification of sordid motives. So they renewed their assaults upon his age and the pretended decadence of his ability, and announced that they had secured his pupil Pleyel. The latter, a neighbor and countryman of Haydn, was at that time thirty-four years of age and twenty-five years the younger. Mozart had expressed a favorable opinion of his talent. He writes to his father in 1784 about Pleyel’s new quartets: “If you do not yet know them, try to get them; it is worth the trouble. You will at once recognize his master. It will be a good and fortunate thing for music if Pleyel in his day is able to supply Haydn’s place for us.” He was unquestionably innocent in the matter of the invitation to come to London, and really made his appearance in the season of 1792.