Notwithstanding all this, it was reported in Bonn from Vienna, in the summer of 1793, that the young countryman made great progress in art, and this was to Haydn’s credit, who, with the help of his Fux and Philip Emanuel Bach, was able to collect and arrange the well acquired theoretical knowledge of the “genial stormer,” in a practical manner, and thereby substantially raised him to his own rank, although he did not comply with the understood wish of his teacher that he would place “Scholar of Haydn” upon the sonatas (op. 2), dedicated to him, because, as he declared in justification of his refusal, that he had not learned anything from him. This remark refers to the higher instruction in composition, where their ideas differed. Yet in 1793, he went with Haydn to Eisenstadt, and he had even intended to go with him the next winter to England. Beethoven’s pupil, Ries, also expressly says that Haydn highly esteemed Beethoven, but as he was so stubborn and self-willed, he called him “the great Mogul.” How entirely free from envy Haydn was towards younger artists at this time, is shown by a note to his godson, Joseph Weigl, afterward the composer of the “Schweizer Familie.” “It is long since I have felt such enthusiasm for any music as yesterday in hearing your ‘Princess of Amalfi,’” he writes to him, January 11, 1794. “It is full of good ideas, sublime, expressive, in short, a masterpiece; I felt the warmest interest in the well deserved applause that greeted it. Keep a place for an old boy like me in your memory.” He had always helped to open the way for the young scholar into the best musical circles of Vienna, and now that the teacher was again about to depart, the scholar could seek his own fortune without going astray.
The preparation of the necessary works for this second journey had been the too constant occupation of the old man. It must have been undertaken however for other reasons than these; for Haydn knew that he must have something to live upon, even in his simple manner, in his unemployed old age. It was not right that a self-willed young beginner, who paid nothing for his instruction, as he had no other means of support except his salary from the Elector, should take up too much of his valuable time. It was enough to impart the main points of instruction without giving any attention to little and merely incidental errors which would disappear of themselves in time. We know Haydn’s views of such things, and there was a characteristic illustration of them in his later days. The contrapuntist, Albrechtsberger, Beethoven’s subsequent teacher, who, according to the latter’s witty statement, at best only created musical skeletons with his art, insisted that consecutive fourths should be banished from strict composition. “What is the good of that?” said Haydn. “Art is free and should not be tied down with mechanical rules. Such artifices are of no value. I would prefer instead that some one would try to compose a new minuet.” Beethoven actually did this, and called it, in his op. 1, Scherzo. “Haydn rarely escaped without a side cut,” says Ries of Beethoven—but however all this may be, we may not only imagine but we know that this opposition between the two artists, which arose from their different temperaments, made no real difference in Beethoven’s respect for Haydn.
We now come to the second London journey. This time the Prince interposed objections. He desired indeed no personal service, but he had a pride in Haydn and his fame, and thought he had secured sufficient glory. He may also have thought that a man sixty years old ought not to expose himself to the hardships of a distant journey, and the persecutions of envy. Haydn appreciated his good intentions, but he still felt strong, and preferred an active life to the quiet in which his Prince had placed him. Besides, he knew that the English public would still recognize his genius, and he had engaged with Salomon to write six more symphonies, and had many profitable contracts with various publishers in London. The Prince at last gave way and allowed Haydn to go, never to see him again, for he died shortly afterward, and Haydn had the fourth of the Esterhazys for patron and master, upon whose order he composed a requiem while in London as a tribute to the departed.
On the 19th of January, 1794, the journey began. While at Scharding, an incident happened which clearly shows Haydn’s good humor. The customs officers asked what his occupation was. Haydn informed them, “A tone-artist;” (Tonkunstler), “What is that?” they replied. “Oh! yes, a potter,” (Thonkunstler), said one. “That’s it,” averred Haydn, “and this one,” (his faithful servant, Ellsler) “is my partner.” At Wiesbaden, he realized with much satisfaction the greatness of his fame. At the inn his Andante with the kettle-drum effect, which had so quickly become a favorite, was played in a room near by him. Dies says: “He regarded the player as his friend, and courteously entered the room. He found some Prussian officers, all of whom were great admirers of his works, and when he at last disclosed himself they would not believe he was Haydn. ‘Impossible! impossible! you, Haydn! a man already so old! this does not agree with the fire in your music.’ The gentlemen continued so long in this strain that at last he exhibited the letter received from his king, which he always carried in his chest for good luck. Thereupon the officers overwhelmed him with their attentions, and he was compelled to remain in their company until long after midnight.”
This time Haydn lived very near to his friend and admirer, Frau Schroter, yet we learn nothing further of their relations to each other. The leading accounts of this second visit have not been kept, but in reality they repeat the events of the first. His name this time was free from detraction. They agreed that his power had increased, and that one of the new symphonies was his best work. His name was in request for every concert-programme, and the repetition of his pieces was as frequent as during his first visit. “In geniality and talent who is like him?” says the Oracle, March 10, 1794.
Sir G. Smart in 1866, then in his ninetieth year, and who was a violin player with Salomon, relates a neat story of this time, to Pohl, the biographer. At a rehearsal there was need of a drummer. Haydn asked: “Is there any one here who can play the kettle-drum?” “I can,” quickly replied young Smart, who never had had a drum stick in his hand, but thought that correct time was all that was necessary. After the first movement, Haydn went to him and praised him, but intimated to him that in Germany they required strokes which would not stop the vibrations of the drum. At the same time he took the sticks and exhibited to the astonished orchestra an entirely new style of drumming. “Very well,” replied the undaunted young Smart, “if you prefer to have this style, we can do it just as well in England.” Haydn’s first drum lessons with his cousin Frankh, in Hamburg, will readily occur to the reader.
On the 12th of May, 1794, the Military Symphony, another favorite among all Haydn’s friends, was performed for the first time. It overflows with genial merriment, and often with genuine frolicsome humor. Not long afterward, the news reached him that the new Prince Nicholas wished to reorganize the orchestra at Eisenstadt, and had appointed him anew as Capellmeister. Haydn received this news with great pleasure. This princely house had assured him a living, and, what was of still more importance, had given him the opportunity of fully developing his talent as a composer. His profits in London far exceeded his salary in the Fatherland, and a persistent effort was made to keep him in England, but he decided as soon as his existing engagements were concluded to return to his old position.
A secret but very powerfully operating reason may also have been the same which to-day actuates that greatest of natural tone artists, Franz Liszt—wherever he may go, he always returns to Germany. It is the spirit of music itself which permeates every fiber of our life, in the earnest feeling of which we bathe and find health. Notwithstanding the attractive performance of the orchestra and of the virtuosi, the most of whom were Germans, the master did not find London and England peculiarly musical. What he thought of the theater is recorded in his diary: “What miserable stuff at Saddler’s Wells! A fellow screamed an aria so frightfully and with such ridiculous grimaces that I began to sweat all over. N. B. He had to repeat the aria! O che bestie!” There yet remained much of the English jockey style in these musico-theatrical performances, and the value of music was reckoned upon another standard than that which belongs to intellectual things. Thus we may readily believe, though Haydn himself pretended not to hear it, that the rough mob in the gallery, hissing and whistling, cried out, “Fiddler, Fiddler,” when the orchestra rose to honor him, an artist and a foreigner, upon his first appearance in the theater. After these not very agreeable experiences of English musical taste, Haydn looked upon it as a comical proof of his reputation, when, as Griesinger relates, Englishmen would approach him, measure him from head to foot, and leave him with the exclamation, “You are a great man.”
Still another circumstance shows how absolutely he preferred his Austrian home. In August, 1794, he visited the ruins of the old abbey of Waverly. “I must confess,” he writes in his diary, “that every time I look upon this beautiful ruin, my heart is troubled as I think that all this once occurred among those of my religion.” His continual abode among people of the Protestant confession, so opposed to his own Catholicism, disturbed those feelings and ideas of the simple man in these later years which had swayed his inner nature for two generations. This is a matter of personal feeling, and does not affect that toleration which in all religious matters characterized his beautiful nature. Finally, political freedom, which had made England so powerful, was not agreeable to his primitive manner of life. While he says not a word of the excellencies of the life of a great free people, he several times alludes to the rude noises and frantic shouts of the “sweet mob” (suessen Poebels) in London festivals and at the theaters. Socially considered, notwithstanding the political freedom, the barriers that separated classes were just as distinct and insurmountable as they are to-day. Nowhere in the world, indeed, is custom more formal—reason enough in itself to make him love his Fatherland all the more fervently.
His fame in England, however, continually increased. He was already called a genius inferior to no one, and this, too, in the same connection with the mention of a performance of Hamlet, which he had attended. His sportive humor allied him very closely to the great English tragic poet: if not so deep and so quickly moving to tears, he still derived his power doubtless from the same simple source of feeling. He himself mentions one instance of his roguish humor while in London, according to Dies and others. He was intimately acquainted with a German who had acquired boundless dexterity in the violin technique, and was addicted to the common practice of always making effects in the extremely high tones. Haydn wished to see if he could not disgust him with this dilettantist weakness and induce a feeling for legitimate playing. The violinist often visited one Miss Janson, who played the piano very skillfully, and was accustomed to accompany him. Haydn wrote a sonata for them, called it “Jacob’s Dream,” and sent it anonymously to the lady, who did not hesitate to perform it with the violinist, as it appeared to be an easy little work. At first it flowed easily through passages which were begun in the third position of the violin. The violinist was in ecstasies. “Very well written. One can see the composer knows the instrument,” he murmured. But in the close, instead of lowering to a practical place, it mounted to the fifth, sixth, and at last to the seventh position. His fingers continually crowded against and through each other like ants. Crawling around the instrument and stumbling over the passages, he exclaimed with the sweat of misery on his brow: “Who ever heard of such scribbling? The man knows nothing about writing for the violin.” The lady soon discovered that the composer meant to illustrate by these high passages the heavenly ladder which Jacob saw in his dream, and the more she observed her companion stumbling around unsteadily upon this ladder, reeling and jumping up and down, the thing was so comical that she could not conceal her laughter, which at length broke out in a storm, from which we may fancy that it cured the dilettante of his foolish passion. It was not discovered until five or six months afterward who the composer was, and Miss Janson sent him a gift.