The quartet, like the symphony, is based on the sonata form, and developed gradually, in a manner similar to the larger work. Haydn’s first attempt in this species was made at the age of twenty-three, and eighty-three quartets are numbered among his catalogued works. The early ones are very like the work of Boccherini, and consist of five short movements, with two minuets. As Haydn progressed his tendency was to make the movements fewer and longer. After Quartet No. 44 the four-movement form is generally used, and his craftsmanship grows more delicate. Gradually he filled the rather stiff and formal outline with ideas that are graceful and charming, even though they may sound somewhat elementary to modern ears. He recognized the fact that in the quartet each individual part must not be treated as solo, nor yet should the others be made to supply a mere accompaniment to the remainder. Each must have its rôle, according to the capacity of the instrument and the balance of parts. The best of Haydn’s quartets exhibit not only a well-established form and a fine perception of the relation of the instruments, but also the more spiritual qualities—tenderness, playfulness, pathos. He is not often romantic, neither is there any trace of far-fetched mannerisms or fads. He gave the form a life and freshness which at once secured its popularity, even though the more scientific musicians of his day were inclined to regard it with suspicion, as a trifling innovation. Nevertheless, it was the form which, together with the symphony, was to attest the greatness of Mozart and Beethoven; and it was from Haydn that Mozart, at least, learned its use.

It is impossible to estimate rightly Haydn’s service to music without taking into account one of his most striking and original characteristics—his use of simple tunes and folk songs. Much light has been thrown on this phase of his genius by the labors of a Croatian scholar, F. X. Kuhac, and the results of his work have been given to the English-speaking world by Mr. Hadow. As early as 1762, in his D-major symphony, composed at Eisenstadt, Haydn began to use folk songs as themes, and he continued to do so, in symphonies, quartets, divertimenti, cantatas, and sacred music, to the very end of his career. In this respect he was unique among composers of his day. No other contemporaneous writer thought it fitting or beautiful to work rustic tunes into the texture of his music. Mozart is witty with the ease of a man of the world, quite different from the naïve drollery of Haydn, whose humor, though perhaps a trifle light and shallow, is always mobile, fresh, and gay. It is pointed out, moreover, by the writers above mentioned that the shapes of Haydn’s melodic phrases are not those of the German, but of the Croatian folk song, and that the rhythms are correspondingly varied. Eisenstadt lies in the very centre of a Croatian colony, and Rohrau, Haydn’s birthplace, has also a Croatian name. Many of its inhabitants are Croatian, and a name, strikingly similar to Haydn’s was of frequent occurrence in that region. Add to this the fact that his music is saturated with tunes which have all the characteristics, both rhythmic and melodic, of the Croatian; that many tunes known to be of that origin are actually employed by him, and the presumption in favor of his Croatian inheritance is very strong.

But Haydn’s speech, like that of every genius, was not only that of his race, but of the world. He had the heart of a rustic poet unspoiled by a decayed civilization. Like Wordsworth, he used the speech of a whole nation, and lived to work out all that was in him. Although almost entirely self-taught, he mastered every scientific principle of musical composition known at his time. He was able to compose for the people without pandering to what was vicious or ignorant in their taste. He identified himself absolutely with secular music, and gave it a status equal to the music of the church. He took the idea of the symphony and quartet, while it was yet rather formless and chaotic, floating in the musical consciousness of the period as salt floats in the ocean, drew it from the surrounding medium, and crystallized it into an art form.

Something has already been said concerning Haydn’s popularity in England, and the genuine appreciation accorded him in that country. Haydn himself remarked that he did not become famous in Germany until he had gained a reputation elsewhere. Even in his old age he remembered, rather pathetically, the animosity of certain of the Berlin critics, who had used him very badly in early life, condemning his compositions as ‘hasty, trivial, and extravagant.’ It is only another proof that Beckmesser never dies. Haydn was his own best critic, though a modest one, when he said, ‘Some of my children are well bred, some ill bred, and, here and there, there is a changeling among them.... I know that God has bestowed a talent upon me, and I thank Him for it. I think I have done my duty, and been of use in my generation by my works.’ He rises above all his contemporaries, except Mozart, as a lighthouse rises above the waves of the sea. With Mozart and Beethoven he formed the immortal trio whose individual work, each with its own quality and its own weight, are the completion and the sum of the first era of orchestral music.

F. B.

IV
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Radically different from the career of Haydn is that of Mozart, which, indeed, has no parallel in the annals of music or any other art. It partakes so much of the marvellous as to defy and to upset all our notions of the growth of creative genius. What Haydn learned by years of endeavor and experience Mozart acquired as if by instinct. The forms evolved by the previous generation, that new elegance of melodic expression, the finesse of articulation and the principles of organic unity, all these were a heritage upon which he entered with full cognizance of their meaning and value. It was as though he had dreamed these things in a previous existence. They made up for him a language which he used more easily than other children use their mother tongue. It is a fact that he learned to read music earlier than words. What common children express in infantile prattle, this marvel of a boy expressed in musical sounds. At three he attempted to emulate his sister at clavier playing and actually picked out series of pleasing thirds; at four, he learned to play minuets which his father taught him ‘as in fun’ (a half-hour sufficed for one), and, at five, he composed others like them himself. At six, these compositions merited writing down, which his father did, and we have the dated notebook as evidence of these first stirrings of genius. At the age of seven Mozart appeared before the world as a composer. The two piano sonatas with violin accompaniment which he dedicated to the Princess Victoire have all the attributes of finished musical workmanship, and, even if his father retouched and corrected these and other early works, the performance, as that of a child, is none the less remarkable.

The extraordinary training and the wise guidance of the father, a highly educated musician, broad-minded and progressive, were the second great advantage accruing to Mozart, whose genius was thus led from the beginning into proper channels. Leopold Mozart, himself under the influence of the Mannheim school, naturally imparted to his son all the peculiarities of their style. Through him also the influence of Emanuel Bach became an early source of inspiration. Pure, simple melody with a natural obvious harmonic foundation was the musical ideal to which Mozart aspired from the first. Nevertheless, the study of counterpoint was never neglected in the training which his father gave him, though it was not until later, under the instruction of Padre Martini, that he came to appreciate its full significance and elevated beauty.

With Mozart the musical supremacy of Germany, first asserted by the instrumental composers of Mannheim and Berlin, is confirmed and extended to the field of vocal music and the opera. Mozart could accomplish this task only by virtue of his broad cosmopolitanism, which, like that of Gluck, enabled him to gather up in his grasp the achievements of the most diverse schools. To this cosmopolitanism he was predisposed by the circumstances of his birth as well as of his early life. The geographical position of Salzburg, where he was born in 1756, was, in a sense, a strategic one. Situated in the southernmost part of Germany, it was exposed to the influence of Italian taste; inhabited by a sturdy German peasantry and bourgeoisie, its sympathies were on the side of German art, and the musicians at court were, at the time of Mozart’s birth, almost without exception Germans. Yet the echoes of the cultural life not only of Vienna, Munich, and Mannheim, but of Milan, Naples, and Paris, reached the narrow confines of this mountain fastness, this citadel of intolerant Catholicism.