“It was as if an electric fire flowed through Haydn’s veins, so powerfully had the events of that day excited his spirits,” says Dies, speaking of a visit to him eight days afterward. But Tomaschek declares: “The tremendous applause which was given to the ‘Creation’ soon cost the old man his life.” We are now perceptibly approaching that event, and yet he was permitted to live to experience still another honor—the brilliant success of his scholar, Beethoven, in the grand concert given in December of that same year.

“As Haydn’s illness increased, Beethoven visited him less frequently,” says Van Seyfried, and he adds, with a correct knowledge of the circumstances, “chiefly from a kind of reserve, since he had already struck out upon a course which Haydn did not entirely approve.” Notwithstanding this, the amiable old man eagerly inquired after his Telemachus, and often asked: “What is our great Mogul doing?” Above all things else, well defined formalism in artistic work suited him, like that of Cherubini, who, after repeated visits, begged for one of his scores upon the occasion of his departure from Vienna, in the spring of 1806. “Permit me to call myself your musical father and you my son,” said Haydn, and Cherubini “burst into tears.” In 1788, Cherubini heard for the first time, in Paris, a Haydn symphony, and was so greatly excited by it, that it forcibly moved him from his seat. “He trembled all over, his eyes grew dim, and this condition continued long after the symphony was ended,” it is said. “Then came the reaction. His eyes filled with tears, and from that instant the direction of his work was decided.” He could all the more easily come to an understanding with the old “papa,” as he had declared with reference to the “Leonora overture,” brought out this year, he could not, on account of the confused modulations, discover the key note.

In characteristic fashion, neither Dies nor Griesinger devote more than a word to Haydn’s relations to Beethoven, and yet the quartets op. 18, had appeared some time before, and were admired in Vienna by the side of Haydn’s and Mozart’s. “Fidelio,” and the first symphonies had also met with success. The Fifth and Sixth were brought out in the concert of December, 1808, and surely friends told him of the powerful works of the new master, who was really “thoughtful, sublime, and full of expression,” and it could only increase Haydn’s own fame as the creator of this kind of music. He himself was now too old to rightly appreciate the character of a Beethoven, who represented an entirely new world.

He occupied the long and often tedious time with prayers and reminiscences of his old adventures, particularly of those days in England, which he cherished as the happiest of his life. He had a particular little box, which was filled with his gifts from potentates and musical societies. “When life is at times very irksome, I look upon all these and rejoice that I am held in honor all over Europe,” he said to Griesinger. Then he would occupy himself with the newspapers, go through the little house accounts, entertain himself with the neighbors and the servants, particularly with his faithful Ellsler, play cards with them in the evening, and was very happy if he won a couple of kreutzers. Music was a trouble to him at last, and there is a very remarkable illustration of this in connection with his “Kaiserlied,” “I am actually a human piano,” he said to Dies in 1806. “For several days, an old song, ‘O Herr, wie lieb ich Dich von Herzen’ is played in me. Wherever I go or stay, I hear it above all else, but when it torments me and nothing will deliver me from it, if only my song, ‘God save the Emperor,’ occurs to me, then I am easier. It cures me.” “That does not surprise me. I have always considered your song a masterpiece,” replied Dies. “I have always had the same opinion, though I ought not to say it,” said Haydn. During this mentally as well as physically weak condition of the old man, then in his 77th year, occurred the Austrian war of Freedom of 1809. “The unhappy war crushes me to the earth,” he complained with tearful eyes. “He was continually occupied with thoughts of his death during his last year, and prepared himself for it every day,” says Griesinger. In April of that year he read his will to his dependents, and asked them if they were satisfied. They thanked him with tearful eyes for his kind provision for their future. On the 10th of May, while engaged in dressing, the sound of a cannon-shot was suddenly heard in the near suburb of Mariahilf. A violent shudder overcame him. After three more shots, he fell into convulsions. Then he rallied all his strength and cried out: “Children, fear not. Where Haydn is, nothing can happen to you.” In fact, during the next fourteen days he pursued his customary manner of life, only it was noticed after the actual occupation by the French, he maintained a severe aspect, which he managed to forget while he played his favorite composition, “The Emperor’s Hymn.” As he had long been accustomed to see distinguished foreigners, and had received men like Admiral Nelson and Marshal Soult, he in like manner accepted visits from several of the French officers, one of whom he received while enjoying his afternoon rest in bed. It was the last visit. He was Sulemy, a French captain of hussars. He sang to the master, whom he so greatly revered that he would have been contented if only to see him through the key-hole, the aria “In Native Worth,” and so beautifully that Haydn burst into tears, sprang up and embraced him with kisses. On the 26th of May he played his “Kaiserlied” three times in succession, with an expression that surprised himself. He died May 31st, 1809, and passed away in an unconscious state. His funeral ceremonies were very simple, on account of the war-time, yet the French authorities noticed his death in a very respectful manner. Eleven years later his remains were taken to Eisenstadt.

Haydn’s works, according to a catalogue made by himself in 1805, which however is not complete, consist of 118 symphonies, 83 quartets, 19 operas, 5 oratorios, 15 masses, 10 small church-pieces, 24 concertos for various instruments, 163 (?) pieces for the bariton, 44 sonatas, 42 songs, 39 canons, 13 songs for several voices, 365 old Scotch songs and numerous five-and-nine-part compositions in various instrumental forms—truly, a genuine fruitfulness of the creative spirit. “There are good and badly brought up children among them, and here and there a changeling has crept in,” said he. There could have been no more suitable epitaph for him than “Vixi, Scripsi, Dixi,” though he earnestly declared, “I was never a rapid writer, and always composed with deliberation and industry.” Above all things, it commends his works to the connoisseur that they in good part have the enduring form. “The record of Haydn’s life is that of a man who had to struggle against manifold obstacles, and by the power of his talent and untiring effort worked his way up, in spite of them, to the rank of the most prominent men of his profession,” Griesinger truly says. He also makes a just estimate of his works as follows: “Originality and richness of ideas, genial feeling, a fancy dominated by close study, versatility in the development of simple thoughts, calculation of effects by the proper division of light and shade, profusion of roguish humor, the easy flow and free movement of the whole.” Were one to add to these the specially prominent characteristic of his music, it would be the distinct German character of his works which on the one hand is reflected in refreshing heartiness and naturalness, and on the other in spirited humor; and which essentially embodies the earnestness and loftiness of those two older Germans, Bach and Handel, and founded that era in which German instrumental music achieved the mastery of the world. In form as well as in substance, Haydn created the artistic pattern of the symphony and the quartet, and, never let it be forgotten, was the one who from his genuine nature and his love of the people, evolved the first German National Hymn.

THE END.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] [This portrait, copied from the original, will be found in the [frontispiece] of this volume.—Translator.]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.