This letter was written in December, 1787, and the news of Mozart's appointment as Imperial private composer had not yet reached Haydn in Esterhaz; the uncertain position of his friend evidently affected him greatly. In the year following, when controversy was rife in Vienna on the subject of "Don Giovanni," Haydn found himself one evening in the midst of a company discussing the faults of omission MOZART'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS. and commission of the new opera; at last he was asked for his opinion. "I cannot decide the questions in dispute," said he; "but this I know, that Mozart is the greatest composer in the world."[ 87 ] It must not be imagined that because Haydn set so high a value on Mozart's operatic compositions, he had by any means a small opinion of his own. Forgotten as they now are, he himself was not inclined to rank them below the performances of the majority of his contemporaries. He writes to Artaria (May 27, 1781):—
Mons. Le Gros, directeur of the Concert spirituel, writes me many compliments on my "Stabat Mater," which has been performed four times with great success. The management were surprised at this revelation of my powers as a vocal composer; but they had had no previous opportunity of judging of them. If they would only hear my operetta "L'Isola Disabitata," and my last opera "La Fedeltä Premiata"! I assure you, such works have never yet been heard in Paris, and perhaps not in Vienna; but it is my misfortune to live retired in the country.
He says of the "Armida," in March, 1874, that it has been produced with signal success, and is considered his best work.[ 88 ] It is doubly significant, therefore, that Haydn should have acknowledged himself so completely overshadowed by Mozart as an operatic composer. And not in this branch of their art alone did he accord him superiority; he gave way even where they might justly be considered as rivals, and declared that, if Mozart had written nothing but his violin quartets and the "Requiem," he would have sufficient claim to immortality.[ 89 ] He assured a friend, with tears in his eyes, that he could never forget Mozart's clavier-playing; "It came from the heart!"[ 90 ] To the end of his life he missed no occasion of hearing Mozart's music, and used to assert that he had never heard one of his compositions without learning something from it.[ 91 ] In 1790, when he had returned to his solitude at "Estoras," he writes how HAYDN AND MOZART. the north wind had waked him from a dream of listening to the "Nozze di Figaro."[ 92 ]
The personal intercourse between the two was simple and hearty. Mozart used to call Haydn "Papa," and both Sophie Haibl and Griesinger mention their use of the pronoun du to each other, a habit less frequent in those days than at present between friends of such difference in age. But while Mozart lived in Vienna, Haydn had his fixed residence at Eisenstadt or Esterhaz, and only came to Vienna for a few months at a time with his princely patron, who was not fond of the capital, and shortened his stay there as far as was practicable; Haydn sometimes obtained leave of absence for a flying visit to Vienna, but the Prince always gave it unwillingly.[ 93 ]
It was not until the Kapelle was broken up, on the death of Prince Nicolaus in 1790, that Haydn took up his abode in Vienna; and in December of the same year Salomon persuaded him to undertake the journey to London. Mozart agreed with others of Haydn's friends in considering this expedition a great risk, and drew his attention to the difficulties he was sure to encounter as an elderly man, unused to the world, amidst a strange people whose language he did not understand. Haydn replied that he was old, certainly, (he was then fifty-nine), but strong and of good courage, and his language was understood by all the world.[ 94 ] Mozart spent the day of Haydn's departure with him, and as they took leave he was moved to tears and exclaimed: "We are taking our last farewell in this world!" Haydn himself was deeply moved, thinking of his own death, and sought to console and calm Mozart.[ 95 ]
A letter from Haydn to Frau von Gennzinger (October 13, 1791) shows that calumniators sought to sow enmity between the friends in their separation: "My friends write, what I cannot however believe, that Mozart is doing all he can to disparage me. I forgive him. Mozart must go to Count von Fries to inquire about the payment."[ 96 ] When the news of Mozart's death reached London, Haydn lamented his loss with bitter tears.[ 97 ]
The sight of these two great and noble men extending to each other the hand of brotherhood, and remaining true to the end, untouched by professional envy or intrigue, is as pleasant as it was rare in the Vienna of those days. Each understood and appreciated the other, each freely acknowledged his indebtedness to the other from a musical point of view, and each, in his own consciousness of power and independence, found the standard for estimating the worth of his brother-artist.
Those who strove to raise the dust of dissension between them are, for the most part, forgotten or relegated to their due position in the background of musical history: Mozart and Haydn stand side by side on the heights, witnessing for ever to the truth that the greatness of a genuinely artistic nature attracts and does not repel its like.