It is of no small value to consider Haydn the man, before even Haydn the musician, for many of the qualities which made him so respected and beloved as a man were the bedrock upon which his genius was built. There was little of the obviously romantic in his life, nearly all of which was spent within a radius of thirty miles; but it glows with kindness, good temper, and sterling integrity. He was loyal to his emperor and his church; thrifty, generous to less fortunate friends and needy relatives, generous, also, with praise and appreciation. Industrious and methodical in his habits, he yet loved a jest or a harmless bit of fooling. He was droll and sunny tempered, modest in his estimate of himself, but possessing at the same time a proper knowledge of his powers. He was not beglamored by the favor of princes; and, while steadfast in the pursuit of his mission, seemed, nevertheless, to have been without ambition, in the usual sense, even as he was without malice, avarice, or impatience. Good health and good humor were the accompaniment of a gentle, healthy piety. These qualities caused him to be beloved in his lifetime; and they rank him, as a man, forever apart from the long list of geniuses whose lives have been torn asunder by passions, by undue sensitiveness, by excesses, or overweening ambition—all that is commonly understood by ‘temperament.’ The flame of Haydn’s temperament burned clearly and steadily, even if less intensely; and the record of his life causes a thrill of satisfaction for his uniform and consistent rightness, his few mistakes.
It remains now to consider the nature of the service rendered by this remarkable man to his art, through the special types of composition indissolubly connected with his name. These are the symphony and the quartet.
III
The early history of the development of the symphony is essentially that of the development of the sonata, which we have described in the last chapter. When Joseph Haydn actually came upon the scene as composer, the term symphony, or ‘sinfonia,’ had been applied to compositions for orchestra, though these pieces bore little resemblance to modern productions. They were usually written in three movements, two of them being rather quick and lively, with a slow one between, and were scored for eight parts—four strings, two oboes or two flutes, and two ‘cors de chasse,’ or horns. Often the flutes or oboes were used simply to reinforce the strings, while the horns sustained the harmony. The figured bass was still in use, often transferred, however, to the viol di gamba, and the director used the harpsichord. The treatment of the parts was still crude and stiff, showing little feeling for the tone color of the instruments, balancing of parts, or variety of treatment.
The internal structure, also, was still very uncertain. The first movement, now usually written in strict sonata form, did not then uniformly contain the two contrasting themes, nor the codas and episodes of the modern schools; and the working-out section and recapitulation were seldom clearly defined. Even in the poorest examples, however, the sonata scheme was generally vaguely present; and in the best often definitely marked. We must not lose sight, however, of the epoch-making work of Stamitz and his associates at Mannheim, both in the fixing of symphonic form and the advancement of instrumental technique. Stamitz’s Opus I appeared, it will be recalled, in 1751; Dittersdorf’s emulation of the Mannheim symphonies began about 1761. The intervening decade was a period of experiment and constant improvement. Haydn, though his first symphony, composed in 1759, showed none of the new influence, must have been cognizant of the advance.
Haydn’s first symphony, written when he was twenty-seven, is described by Pohl as being a ‘small work in three movements, for two violins, viola, bass, two hautboys, and two horns; cheerful and unpretending in character.’ From this time on his experiments in the symphonic form were continuous, and more than one hundred examples are credited to him. He was so situated as to be able to test his work by actual performance. To this fortunate circumstance may be attributed the fact that he made great improvements in orchestration, and that he gained steadily in clearness of outline, variety of treatment, and enlargement of ideas.
In five years Haydn composed thirty symphonies, besides many other pieces. His reputation spread far beyond the bounds of Austria, and the official gazette of Vienna called him ‘our national favorite.’ His seclusion furthered his originality and versatility, and his history seems a singularly marked example of growth from within, rather than growth according to the currents of contemporary taste. By 1790 the number of symphonies had reached one hundred and ten, and the steps of his development can be clearly traced. There are traces of the old traditions in the doubling of the parts, sometimes throughout an entire movement; in the neglect of the wind instruments, sometimes for the entire adagio; and in long solo passages for bassoon or flute. Such peculiarities mark most of the symphonies up to 1790. Among these crudities, however, are signs of a steady advance in other respects. In the all-important first movement he more and more gave the second theme its rights, felt for new ways of developing the themes themselves, and elaborated the working-out section. The coda began to make its appearance, and the figured bass was abandoned. He established the practice of inserting the minuet between the slow movement and the finale, thus setting the example for the usual modern practice. The middle strings and wind instruments gradually grew more independent, the musical ideas more cultivated and refined, his orchestration clearer and more buoyant. His work is cheerful and gay, showing solid workmanship, sometimes deep emotion, rarely poetry. Under his hands the symphony, as an art form, gained stability, strength, and a technical perfection which was to carry the deeper message of later years, and the message of the great symphonic writers who followed him.
During Haydn’s comparative solitude at Eisenstadt, however, a wonderful youth had come into the European musical world, had absorbed with the facility of genius everything that musical science had to offer, had learned from Haydn what could be done with the symphony as he had learned from Gluck what could be done with opera, and had outshone and outdistanced every composer living at the time. What Haydn was able to give to Mozart was rendered back to him with abundant interest. Mozart made use of a richer and more flexible orchestration, achieved greater beauty and poignancy of expression; and Haydn, while retaining his individuality, still shows marked traces of this noble influence. The early works of Haydn were far in advance of his time, and were highly regarded; but they do not reveal the complete artist, and they have been almost entirely superseded in public favor by the London symphonies, composed after Mozart’s death. In these he reaches heights he had never before attained, not only in the high degree of technical skill, but in the flood of fresh and genial ideas, and in new, impressive harmonic progressions. The method of orchestration is much bolder and freer. The parts are rarely doubled, the bass and viola have their individual work, the parts for the wind instruments are better suited to their character, and greater attention is paid to musical nuances. In these last works Haydn arrived at that ‘spiritualization of music’ which makes the art a vehicle not only for intellectual ideas, but for deep and earnest emotion.
Parallel with the growth of the symphonic form and its variety of treatment came also a real growth of the orchestra. The organization of 1750, consisting of four strings and four wind instruments, had become, in 1791, a group of thirty-five or forty pieces, consisting of, besides the strings, two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and drums. To these were sometimes added clarinets, and occasionally special instruments, such as the triangle or cymbals. Thus, by the end of the century, the form of the symphony, according to modern understanding, was practically established, and the orchestra organized nearly according to its present state. Haydn represents the last stage of the preparatory period, and he was, in a very genuine and literal sense, the founder, and to some degree the creator, of the modern symphony.
The string quartet had its birth almost simultaneously with the symphony, and is also the child of Haydn’s genius. Its ancestors are considered by Jahn to be the divertimenti and cassations designed for table music, serenades, and such entertainments, and written often in four or five movements for four wind instruments, wind instruments with strings, or even for clavier. This species of composition was transferred, curiously enough, to two violins, viola and bass—the latter being in time replaced by the 'cello. This combination of instruments, so easily available for private use, appealed especially to Haydn, and his later compositions for it are still recognized as models.