Meanwhile, Haydn had spent two days with the Duke of York, who had married the seventeen-year-old Princess Ulrica, of Prussia, daughter of King Frederick William II. In 1787, her music-loving father had sent him a ring, which he wore as a talisman, and a very complimentary letter, for six new quartets. “She is the most charming lady in the world, is very intelligent, plays the piano and sings very agreeably,” writes Haydn. “The dear little lady sat near me and hummed all the pieces, which she knew by heart, having heard them so often in Berlin. The Duke’s brother, the Prince of Wales, played the ’cello accompaniment very acceptably. He loves music exceedingly, has very much feeling but very little money. His goodness, however, pleases me more than any self-interest,” he says in conclusion. The Prince also had Haydn’s portrait painted for his cabinet.
Many more personal attentions of a similar kind were paid him. One Mr. Shaw made a silver lid for a snuff-box which Haydn had given him, and inscribed thereon, “Presented by the renowned Haydn.” His very beautiful wife—“the mistress is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he writes in his diary—embroidered his name in gold upon a ribbon which he preserved even when a very old man. It was at this time he received with bitter tears the news of Mozart’s death. “Mozart died December 5, 1791,” he simply writes in his diary, but we know the beautiful remark he made to his friend in Vienna who had so often played Mozart’s masterpieces for him. At a later period he said in a similar strain to Griesinger: “Mozart’s loss is irretrievable. I can never forget his playing in my life. It went to the heart.” In the year 1807, speaking to other musical friends in Vienna, he said with tears in his eyes: “Pardon me, I must always weep at the name of my Mozart.” Indeed, at this time he must have deeply felt the contrast between the brilliancy of this genius and the darkness of his own outer life in these declining years. And yet he felt all the more the importance of preserving the respect for German art. In the midst of such times as these Pleyel arrived. “So there will now be a bloody harmonious war between master and scholar,” he writes, but on the other hand they were frequently together. “Pleyel displayed so much modesty upon his arrival that he won my love anew. We are very often together, which is to his credit, and he knows how to prize his father. We will share our fame alike, and each one will go home contented,” he says. He too must have longed for his Austrian home, or he would have acted differently towards “Papa.”
One of the newspapers rightly understood the situation. “Haydn and Pleyel are offset against each other this season, and both parties are earnest rivals, yet as both belong to the same rank as composers, they will not share the petty sentiments of their respective admirers,” says the Public Advertiser, and so it eventuated, though not until after many painful experiences for both the men, for with the others’ plans there was mingled very much of personal animosity. The Professionals announced twelve new compositions of Pleyel’s. Early in 1792 Haydn writes to Vienna: “In order to keep my word and support poor Salomon, I must be the victim, and work incessantly. I really feel it. My eyes suffer the most. My mind is very weary, and it is only the help of God that will supply what is wanting in my power. I daily pray to Him, for without His assistance I am but a poor creature.” The best hours of the day he was compelled to devote to visits and private musicals. “I have never written in any one year of my life as much as in the last,” he says, and yet his works show all the charming freshness of youth, with the contrast of greater depth and richer illustration. He found time to arrange twelve Scotch songs, and he says, “I am proud of this work, and flatter myself that it will live many years after I am gone.” But they made a complete failure, and the publishers therefore made a subsequent application to Beethoven.
The professional concerts at this time again had the precedence, and it is a fair illustration of their rivalry, that at the commencement they brought out a symphony of his and sent him a personal invitation. “They criticise Pleyel’s presumption very much, but I admire him none the less. I have been to all his concerts, and was the first to applaud him,” he writes to Vienna. In his first concert he also brought out a symphony of Pleyel’s. His own new symphony, notwithstanding he thought the last movement was weak, made “the deepest impression upon his audience.” The Adagio had to be repeated, and the entire work was performed again in the eighth and eighteenth concerts, by “request.” For the second concert he wrote a chorus, “The Storm.” It was the first which he had composed with English text, and it met with extraordinary success, because in it were united the most striking qualities of his art, skill, and good humor. As he himself writes, he gained considerable credit with the English in vocal music and this was destined to have a decisive result.
At the sixth concert, March 23, 1792, the symphony with the kettle-drum effect was given. Haydn says of it: “It was a convenient opportunity for me to surprise the public with something new. The first Allegro was received with innumerable bravas, but the Andante aroused the enthusiasm to the highest pitch. ‘Encore, encore,’ resounded on every side, and Pleyel himself complimented me upon my effects.” Gyrowetz visited him after its completion to hear it upon the piano. At the drum-passage, Haydn, certain of its success, with a roguish laugh, exclaimed: “There the women will jump.” Dies gives the current version of the original cause of the work as follows: The ladies and gentlemen in the concerts, which took place after the late English dinners, often indulged in a nap, and Haydn thought he would waken them in this comic manner. The English call the symphony, “The Surprise,” and among all the twelve, it is to this day, the favorite.
How deeply Haydn’s music impressed his English hearers, and how clearly it appears that they for the first time recognized the soul of music, disclosing to the popular mind its mysterious connection with the Infinite, is evident from a strange entry in Haydn’s diary. A clergyman, upon hearing the Andante of one of his symphonies, sank into the deepest melancholy, because he had dreamed the night before its performance, that the piece announced his death. He immediately left the assemblage, and took to his bed. “I heard to-day, April 25, that this clergyman died,” writes Haydn. It is the elementary revelations of the deepest feeling and individual spiritual certitude that speak to us in Haydn’s music, and they have, so to speak, the most powerful grasp upon our individual existence. Indeed, they explain the irresistible and immeasurable influence of music. It is the image of Infinity itself, while the other arts are only the images of its phenomena. Its influence is so much more powerful and impressive than that of the other arts, because, as the philosopher would say, they represent only the shadow of things, while music represents their actual existence. A people so pre-eminently metaphysical and serious in character as the English, must have taken this simple, but deeply thoughtful Haydn and his symphonies into their very hearts. How could they have awarded the palm to any one living at that time over him? He had himself thoroughly comprehended the deep-lying genius of this nation, and in the province of his genius he could lead it to a point its own nature could not reach. Every one of his compositions written for London, as well as those subsequently, show this, and many of his utterances illustrate his esteem for the English public. “The score was much more acceptable to me because much of it I had to change to suit the English taste,” he writes in March, 1792, when his long wished-for symphony in E major had been forwarded to him from Vienna. And it should be remembered among all these events that Handel had written all his oratorios in and for London, and Beethoven’s Ninth was “the symphony for London.”
In May, 1792, Haydn had a benefit concert, at which two new symphonies were performed, and this, like the last concert, met with such favor, that Salomon offered the public an extra concert with the works that had been most admired during the season. “Salomon closed his season with the greatest eclat,” says the Morning Herald, and Pohl simply and appropriately adds: “Haydn was in all his glory, beloved, admired and courted. His name was the main stay of every concert-giver. Painters and engravers immortalized their art by his picture.” One such, a highly characteristic profile portrait, by George Dance, is given with the English edition (1867) of the “Musical Letters.”[A] It confirms the description of his appearance, which has already been given, in every feature.
Before his departure, he had another experience, which clearly indicates and reveals the source of music in his nature. At the yearly gathering of the Charity Scholars at St. Paul’s cathedral, he heard four thousand children sing a simple hymn. “I was more touched by this devout and innocent music than by any I ever heard in my life,” he says in his diary, and he adds in confirmation of it: “I stood and wept like a child.”
With this impression were unconsciously associated the most active memories of his own home, from which he had been absent so long. The home-image never rises so vividly in our hearts as when we see these little ones who are so particularly the active genii of the house and home. He stated, as the principal reason for his return, his wish to enjoy the pleasure of his fatherland; and he wrote in December, 1791, that he could not reconcile himself to spend his life in London, even if he could amass millions. Other artists have also borne testimony to the influence of the Festival alluded to above. In 1837, Berlioz attended it with the violinist Duprez and John Cramer. “Never have I seen Duprez in such a state; he stammered, wept, and raved,” says Berlioz. The latter, in order to get a better view of the whole scene, donned a surplice, and placed himself among the accompanying basses, where, more than once, “like Agamemnon with his toga,” he covered his face with his music sheets, overcome with the sight of the children and the sound of their voices. As they were going out, Duprez exclaimed in delight, speaking in Italian instead of French, in his excitement: “Marvelous! marvelous! The glory of England!”
Haydn might well have thought the same, for he had already made a deep impression upon the nation, and touched its heart with the kindly feelings of life.