CHAPTER V
MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD
This must have occurred to every one whilst reading the biographies of great artists: After all, is it the function of high genius to discover means of expression only that they may be used afterwards by numberless mediocrities who have nothing whatever to express? It is gravely set down about Haydn, for instance, that he "stereotyped" the symphony form, and "handed it on" to future generations. Now, I have observed that the men who do this kind of work are always the second-rate men: first come the inventors, the pioneers, and then the perfecters; it is always at the close of a school that the tip-top men arise. They claw in their material from everywhere around, and use it up so thoroughly as to leave nothing for the later comers to do with it that was not done before, and done better, done when the stuff was fresh and the impulse full of its first vigour. Haydn did a lot of spade-work for Mozart and Beethoven, especially Mozart; but that was early, more than twenty years before his death, and it is significant that the portion of his life-work which most influenced and directed Mozart and Beethoven is chiefly second-rate music. When he was writing the music that forces us to place him near the noblest composers, he obeyed the invariable rule, and was in turn being influenced by Mozart. The case is remarkable, but it is only what anyone with a seeing eye might have predicted, and to us to-day it is quite plain.
It is the constructive part of his work—the work of his middle period—we must now briefly examine. In the list of his principal compositions for the period 1761-1790 are included nearly one hundred symphonies and other orchestral works, innumerable trios, quartets, operas, songs, and clavier or piano pieces, one oratorio, The Seven Words, and other sacred pieces. How many of them are heard to-day? How many could be heard with pleasure? Very, very few. If anyone who happened to be familiar with the Salomon symphonies—belonging to his last period, after he had known Mozart—and The Creation heard some of this older stuff for the first time, he would hardly believe that the man who in his age wrote so much fresh, vital music, charged with colour and energy, could in the prime of physical life have written music that is now so old-fashioned and stale. To this general verdict exceptions must be made in the cases of some of the quartets, the clavier pieces, and The Seven Words, the last especially being, as I have already said, in his most splendid manner. Haydn did not stereotype the symphony, because it never was at any time stereotyped; but he made endless experiments in the search for a general profound principle which underlies all music composed since his time. Mozart helped to make his own meaning clear to him, divined what he was groping after, and himself seized it and made glorious use of it, and Haydn profited, so that we have his master-works. But the experiments possess for us little more than the interest of experiments. Yet they were new and inspiring at the time. Had he continued to write in the pre-1761 manner, he would never have by 1790 won his world-wide fame, and made London seek him and so draw from him his finest work.
After, say, 1785, the old contrapuntal smack has gone out of his writing, and his form has grown definite. Often, indeed, his outlines are much too hard, as was natural at a time when he was with all his might trying to take his principles in a firm grip. If we take a typical symphony of this time, we find, first the adagio introduction. This feature, as we all know, was turned to noble use by Beethoven, notably in the seventh symphony; but it is not an essential. Mozart scarcely used it, and even with Haydn I fancy the Prince must have liked it, or we should not find it so often. The allegro is in what the text-books call the "accepted" form, first and second subjects—often not clearly differentiated, but more and more so as time passed—"working-out" section and recapitulation with or without coda. Here we have complete unity, and as much variety as the composer wanted. With all the richness and variety, the intellectual structure is so firm and distinctly marked that the mind grasps the whole thing at once. Then comes the slow movement, sometimes with two distinct themes, sometimes with only one, varied at each repetition, and with episodes composed of fresh matter between the repetitions. The minuet and trio are little, if at all, different from those of Emanuel Bach. The finale is generally a bit of a romp; the structural plan is that of the first movement, or a rondo. So much for the form. As for the music, it is, I say, free from counterpoint, and is more and more filled with the spirit of folk-song. The themes sing and the music takes its impulse and motion from them; the web is no longer made up of contrapuntal workings: counterpoint is never more than an accompaniment, a helpful device. What Wagner called the melos, the melody, or melodic outline, that begins at the beginning and ends only at the end—this is the thing. The influence of the folk-song is certainly most marked in the slow movements, just as that of the dance is shown in the finales. Haydn's adagios, at his best, speak with the deepest yet the simplest feeling. A fairly close analogy is that of Burns, who, with little natural inspiration, found inspiration in his native ballads, and often worked up the merest doggerel into artistic shapes of wondrous poignancy. Haydn's habitual temper was cheerful, and his music rattles along with a certain gaiety of gallop very far away from the mechanical grinding or pounding accents of the contrapuntalists. (I don't mean the great men; I mean the Wagenseils, Gossecs and the rest, who were trying to do the new thing without shaking off the old contrapuntal fetters.) But the spirit of his native songs was continually touching him and informed his melodies with a degree of emotion that we find in none of the other strivers after symphonic form.
We are far removed from Haydn now, and if often his second subjects seem little different from his first, we must remember that when all was fresh contrasts would be perceived that now have vanished out of the music. Haydn, neither now nor in his final period, was excessively fond of violent contrasts. Often the new start in the new key seems to have afforded a sufficient feeling of variety, and it is worthy of note that later, when Beethoven used violently contrasting kinds of themes to express dramatically contrasting feelings, the question of key ceased to have the same importance. Composers later than Mozart have never troubled to mark their first key, so that the key of the second subject might sound like a grateful change and continuation; the stuff of the themes has been depended on for variety, while for unity the great art of thematic development has served. So far as Haydn carried this art, we may note a few of his devices. Double counterpoint, imitation, fugue, or at least fughetta—these he returned to later. Bits of themes—mere fragments marking definite rhythms—were used in spinning new melodies, a rhythm, or perhaps a sufficiently distinctive harmonic progression, connecting them with what had gone before. This use of a "germ" idea was chiefly due to Beethoven, who, as in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony, worked out a gigantic piece of music from four notes. But Haydn knew well how the value of intervals in a melody might be changed by the harmony, how a familiar bit of tune, with the simplest harmonies arranged in a new way, resulted in practically a new melody. This device he commonly used, sometimes with fine results. The incessant series of climaxes, leading us on and keeping us in suspense until a certain point is reached, then releasing the tension for a moment, and preparing to do the same again—these he employed to an extent, but not as Beethoven employed them.
All this Mozart perceived, and made instant use of. As for the mediocrities for whose benefit Haydn is held to have "stereotyped" the form, what could they learn from him? I will say what they did learn. They learnt to take themes which did not sound exactly like the subjects of a fugue; they laid out their first and their second, and then they did not know what on earth to do, and footled and stumbled till it was time for the recapitulation; so that Haydn himself said the worst of the young men was that they could not stick long enough at anything to work it out, and no sooner began one thing than they wanted to be off to another. They were even worse off in their slow movements. Unlike Mozart, they never discovered that the continuous melody, the melos, was Haydn's grand secret; and if they had discovered it, they had not the genius and the simple deep sincerity to make use of the discovery. That natural sincerity of feeling kept Haydn on the right path through all the weary Esterhazy years, when he was surrounded by French influences and every influence that made for artificiality and falsity.
The clavier music, with the exception of a few bits, is of no great importance; still, I have played much of it with pleasure in Dr. Riemann's edition, and found many charming things. His genius, however, so far as anything less in scale than the symphony was concerned, was all for the string quartet. Some of his slow movements, in their sudden moments of unsuspected depths of feeling, prophesy of the coming of the great human Beethoven rather than the ethereal, divinely beautiful Mozart. Suavity, smoothness, piquancy, perfect balance between section and section, and each movement and the other movements—these characterize all the later quartets. They were intended for chamber use only—to play them in a large hall is criminal—and it almost goes without saying that, after the hot stuff of Beethoven and even Schubert, more than a couple of them in an evening palls on one's palate. Haydn was in many ways a great, a very great, composer; but no one can live with his work as one can live with Bach or Beethoven. We are all of the nineteenth or twentieth century; Haydn was of the eighteenth. Such contradictions of godlike greatness and mere simple childishness were surely never met together in one man, and we can worship the greatness without any compulsion to tolerate the childishness.
For the operas a few words will suffice. In style they are far more old-fashioned than Mozart's or Gluck's, and he had the dramatic—or, rather, theatrical—instinct much less strongly developed than either of these. He wrote strings of songs, duets, etc., for the theatre at Esterház—many of them for the Marionette Theatre—and was content if they pleased his patron. One or two were given elsewhere with some success; but, with regard to Armide, he wrote stating his view that his operatic works should not be given at all save in the conditions for which they were composed. Those conditions have now for ever passed away, and excepting as curiosities the operas will never be heard again.
CHAPTER VI
1790-1795
All his magnificence over, Prince Nicolaus was left to sleep tranquilly in his tomb regardless of the mocking funereal magnificence around him; Prince Anton succeeded him, and dismissed the band, and pensioned Haydn; and Haydn, at the age of fifty-eight, was free. Salomon's horses must have been made to sweat on that rush back from Cologne to Vienna, and he was rewarded for his own enterprise and their toils. He captured Haydn easily. Haydn, in fact, having done his day's work manfully, seemed determined to have a jolly fling in the evening of his life, and, we may note, he determined to have it at a profit. In the event his little fling turned out to be, so far as externals went, quite the most exhilarating part of his life; until now all might seem to have been mere prelude and preparation. At Eisenstadt, Esterház and Vienna he had received compliments and presents, and had been regarded as more or less of a great little man. But in those days he had also been a servant, compelled when on duty to wear a uniform—he never wore it at other times, which shows how much be liked it—and to be for ever at the beck and call of his princely master. Now Jack—or, rather, Joseph—was to be his own master and the master of others, and to have half an aristocracy at his beck and call; he was to conquer the heart of yet another woman in addition to an already long list, the "pretty widow"—but I will not anticipate the story. He had no longer to write mainly for the ears of a Prince Nicolaus, but for those of a backward musical public accustomed to a very different sort of music, Handel's. One is tempted to speculate as to what might have happened had he been sooner set free. There is nothing whatever to show that Nicolaus was ever in a hurry to urge him on to fresh experiments, and in the absence of any evidence it is merely fair to assume that such a prince in such a court, if he was not, indeed, everlastingly crying out for "something more like you used to give us," was at any rate well enough content with the older stuff, and that in his tastes he lumbered far behind in Haydn's daring steps. In London Haydn had now every opportunity, even every incentive, to strive, regardless of consequences, after his own ideal; and what the fruits were we shall see.
Terms were arranged; Haydn was to compose six symphonies and to "conduct" (at the pianoforte) six concerts. For this he was to receive a certain sum, and the proceeds of a benefit concert. A farewell was said to Prince Anton and many friends, and what proved to be a long, long farewell to Mozart, and on December 15, 1790, he and Salomon set out. They travelled to Munich first, then on through Bonn and Brussels to Calais; they crossed the Channel in safety, and arrived in London on the first day of the year 1791. There he first of all stayed with Bland (who had supplied the razor and bagged the quartet four years before) at 45, High Holborn. Then he went to live with Salomon at 18, Great Pulteney Street. Later on, he went to live in the country, at Lisson Grove, which is now not even a suburb, and he also paid visits to various country seats.
He was now nearly sixty; his mental powers were at their fullest vigour, his physical health was excellent, and he was on a holiday. Because it is about Haydn, the story of this and his subsequent visit to England makes delightful reading. If in his long solitude he had drawn all he could out of himself, now he was to receive impressions and impulses from the active and social world that had great results. He was lionized and petted, and enabled easily to make plenty of money; and he remained the simple, shrewd, unspoiled, industrious Haydn he had been all along. He met all the distinguished people of the time, and was taken to see and hear everything. Of course, Dr. Burney was much about. The whole visit has been written about a hundred times. I must touch quickly on the significant incidents. On March 11 the first of Salomon's concerts was given in the Hanover Rooms, and the audience was large, fashionable and enthusiastic. The band, with Salomon, first violin, leading, was constituted thus: sixteen violins, four violas, eight 'cellos, four basses, flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, and drums—forty-one all told. It was this orchestra Haydn wrote his twelve best symphonies for. He himself directed at the pianoforte, and contemporaries were not wanting to say that at times the effect was somewhat disagreeable. The first "Salomon set" of symphonies were those in C, D, G (The Surprise or Paukenschlag), the B flat, C minor, and D. All these save the first are dated 1791.
The press, such as it was—one wonders who wrote the critiques of those days—was as enthusiastic as the audiences, so every one was pleased. One of his principal admirers was the "pretty widow." The incident was charmingly related by the late Mrs. Craigie in "The Artist's Life" (Werner Laurie). The lady was a Mrs. Schroeter, a wealthy widow, who lived in James Street, Buckingham Gate. Haydn gave her lessons, and appears to have visited her every day; the pair corresponded, and on his second trip to England he took lodgings in Bury Street, apparently to be near her. She was turned sixty, but Haydn described her in after-years as strikingly handsome. Whether she was or not, she evidently conquered his hot Hungarian heart, for he said that had he been free he certainly would have married her. What happened before his final return to Vienna is not known; afterwards there seem to have been no more letters, and only a chance remark shows that he preserved a tender memory of her. Thank goodness, they could not marry, so the romance is unspotted.
But Haydn had plenty of matters beside love-making to attend to. One Gallini got a licence to give entertainments in the King's theatre, and Haydn was engaged to compose, and did compose, for them. He had also been paid for an opera, Orfeo, and tried to finish it at Lisson Grove, but nothing ever came of it as the enterprise collapsed. His first benefit concert brought him £350; at the second, given on May 30, in the Hanover Square Rooms, he gave the Seven Words in its original form as a "Passione Instrumentale." Then he turned to a little holiday-making. He had multitudes of friends—almost chief amongst them being Cramer the younger—and multitudes of invitations. In July he went to Oxford, and was given an honorary degree; he directed three orchestral concerts there—imagine it!—from the organ. One of the symphonies played there became known as The Oxford, though it had been written long before. Prince Anton had invited him to return, but as Haydn had entered into a second contract with Salomon he contrived somehow to prolong his stay in England. The Prince of Wales had just got married, and invited Haydn to stay with him a few days—presumably to cheer him during the honeymoon. So they made music together; Haydn even obliged his hostess by singing with a voice which is said to have been like a crow's. Hoppner painted the portrait which is now in Hampton Court; it was engraved by Facius in 1807. Later, Haydn went to Cambridge; then came his second series of triumphs.
Even people who were supposed to be highly civilized showed at that epoch a considerable degree of their ancestors' love of fighting, both in London and in continental cities. Duels at the organ or piano, or on the violin, were commonly arranged between rival virtuosi, and art-matters were settled by votes, or by the stronger lungs or arms. Haydn was not to be left in peace. The professional musicians gave some concerts in opposition to Salomon's, and they imported Haydn's own pupil, Pleyel, as their champion. But Pleyel, though noted in his day as a teacher of the violin, and still remembered as the author of elementary violin duets useful to beginners, was a gentle, kindly soul, perfectly aware of Haydn's strength and his own weakness. Fight there was none, for Haydn simply paid no attention: but it is good to know that the two men remained friends. I do not remember that after this another attempt was made to turn the concert-hall into a cockpit.
During this second season many of Haydn's works of all descriptions were produced, and the concerts were as successful as those of the preceding year. An event, which might have been far-reaching in its effects had it happened earlier in his life, was his attendance at the Handel Commemoration in Westminster Abbey. He must have known some of Handel's oratorios, for Mozart had rescored them for van Swieten's concerts in Vienna; now he heard for the first time how the giant could indeed smite like a thunderbolt when he chose. However, during his next stay in London he had fuller opportunities of listening to Handel, and we will leave the matter until a few pages later. He attended about this time a service of charity children in St. Paul's Cathedral, and was strangely moved by a ridiculous old chant of Peter Jones, the effect being due, of course, to the fresh children's voices. He remarked on it in his diary, and wise commentators have pointed out that in writing the chant down he "beautified" it with passing notes. Of course, all organists of the period—and until a considerably later period—"beautified" everything they played in precisely the same fashion, and naturally the children would follow the organ. There remain to mention now only his friendship with Bartolozzi the engraver, and Mrs. Hodges, "the loveliest woman I ever saw" (ah! that inflammable heart), and the friendship with John Hunter, the surgeon, and his wife. Mrs. Hunter wrote the words for most of the twelve English canzonets. Mrs. Hodges composed, and some pieces by her, copied in Haydn's hand, with a note by him, were found amongst his papers.
He was now a wealthy man. He returned to Vienna by way of Bonn, where Beethoven submitted a composition to him. As every one knows, Beethoven soon followed him to Vienna, and took lessons, and complained that Haydn took no pains with him. Now, Haydn was no pedant; with him the final court of appeal was the ear. When the theorists said that the celebrated false relations at the opening of Mozart's C major quartet were wrong, Haydn was merely impatient; he said that if Mozart wrote them we might depend upon it Mozart had an excellent reason for doing so. Probably he did not want Beethoven to waste his time on piffling schoolboy exercises. Anyhow, Beethoven always spoke of him with respect, and Haydn said Beethoven's septet was sublime.
His stay in Vienna was not a long one. He again agreed with Salomon to compose six new symphonies, and come to London to conduct them. On January 17, 1794, he set out. Prince Anton was unwilling for him to leave, and died three days afterwards. In many respects this visit was a duplicate of the first. The symphonies he wrote were the "Military" in G, and the D minor, both 1794; the E flat, apparently composed in 1793, and the B flat, E flat, and D minor and major, all 1795. The last, one of his finest, with certainly his finest introductory adagio, is probably the last symphony he wrote. It is not only dated 1795, but has the composer's note that it is the twelfth he wrote in England. As we shall see, he directed his attention to another style of music on his return to Vienna. Meantime, in London he was incessantly occupied, was honoured by royalty and them that were great in the land, he amassed money, and he saw much of his beloved Mrs. Schroeter. The King and Queen asked him to spend the summer at Windsor, and to settle in England. Haydn's reply was that he could not leave his prince. Prince Anton was dead, but a new Nicolaus reigned in his stead, and Haydn obviously regarded himself as a kind of family servant whose services pass to the next heir. It was during this visit that he heard so much of Handel. We must remember that at this time Handel was the musical god of England. George III. could barely stand any other music, and the public were almost, though not quite, of their royal master's way of thinking. Haydn they admired vastly; but it was found advisable to mix up a good deal of Handel's music with his on the programmes of the concerts at the King's theatre. There were also Handel performances at Covent Garden. Such effects as that of the throbbing mass of vocal tone in the chorus from Joshua, "The people shall tremble," must have overwhelmed him, and the swift directness and colossal climaxes of the "Hallelujah" from the Messiah certainly impressed him. However great the revelation of Handel's supreme might, Haydn never imitated Handel's style or devices for getting huge effects; the artistic treatment he received in London, as well as the social treatment, the flattery and petting, left him Haydn. That he learned much from Handel cannot be doubted, and it must have been Handel's music that suggested to him the idea of composing The Creation and so much church music; but Haydn the artist remained unchanged, like Haydn the man; he learnt and he profited, but he went on doing things in his own way. Handel was one of the three most potent influences who made him. The first was Emanuel Bach, who fertilized his mind, sowed ideas; the second was Mozart, who shaped, coloured and directed his thoughts; the last, Handel, turned his attention to oratorio, sacred music and choral writing. Handel modified Haydn less than the others; Haydn was then getting on towards old age; he was also by force of sheer instinct above all things a writer for the orchestra; and Handel's art, derived in the first place from Purcell's, had become a purely personal one which no one since has copied with the slightest success. Still it must have been good for Haydn to hear such a rolling river of tone as the "Amen" of The Messiah, the springtide joyfulness and jubilation of "And the glory of the Lord," the white heat of "And He shall purify," and "For unto us a Child is born," with its recurring climaxes of ever-increasing intensity. He frankly imitated none of these things, but they must, consciously or unconsciously, have heightened the nobility of the great choral fugues that relieve the triviality of so much of his church music.
After what we should call the concert season was over, Haydn again went off on a round of visits. Amongst others, there was one to Bath with Dr. Burney. When music in London came to life again, both Haydn and Salomon were much in evidence, but the Salomon concerts were now given under a more grandiloquent title, following the fashion of the time. They became the National School of Music, and were given in the King's concert-room which had recently been added to the King's theatre. Haydn was, as before, composer and conductor, and one or two of his symphonies figured in every programme. His last benefit brought him £400. It took place on May 4, and on June 1 he appeared before an English audience for the last time. Prince Nicolaus had sent urgently for him, as he desired to have his household and chapel music set in order. Haydn, of course, had never left the Esterhazy service. He continued to draw the emoluments of office, and thought it his duty to obey his Prince's wishes. He never again drudged as he had done in the old days, but he was always within call of his master. But those were leisurely days, and it took Haydn two and a half months to wind up his various affairs and say good-bye to his friends. On August 15 he set off. He must have carried away pleasant recollections. He had come to England with Salomon the first time, at the end of 1790, to have a fling, and by the time the second trip was over he must have felt that he had had one. It was assuredly a fling such as few composers have had after a long, industrious and honourable life's work. Not that his career was by any means finished. He had nearly fourteen years of life before him, many of them active years. He had made a fortune—"It is only in England," said he, "that such sums can be earned by artists"; and now, when he returned to his native land, he found his countrymen ready to treat him with all the respect, not to say reverence and hero-worship, he had received in England.
One delightful little incident must be related before closing this chapter, partly because of the prettiness of it, partly to show the position he had now won in Austria. Soon after his return to Vienna, a Count Herrach and some other friends took him to Rohrau, and showed him there, on the banks of the Leitha, a monument with a bust of him. They visited his birthplace, and Haydn went down on his knees and kissed the threshold. Then he showed his companions the stove where, as a baby, he had sat and pretended to play the violin. "There," he said, "is where my musical career began." He had had many triumphs, and more were to come, but none can have been more pleasant to him than this.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT SYMPHONIES
Till Haydn came to London, he had nearly always been compelled to compose for small bands. Count Morzin's, in fact, could scarcely be called a band. It consisted of a few strings, with a few wind instruments to increase the volume of the tuttis. The contrast of loud with soft passages was the most frequently used way of getting change and variety; though often solos were given to one instrument or another. Of orchestral colour, of orchestration in the modern sense, there was little. Haydn himself confessed in his old age that only then, when he had to leave the world, had he learnt how to use the wind instruments. But if Mozart's delightful tone-colouring cannot be found in the London symphonies, there is at any rate much greater fullness and richness than we find in the earlier ones. Yet here, again, Mozart was ahead of him, and one reason for this was the very different natures and textures of the two men's music. Haydn spoke naturally through the string quartet, and many of the slow movements of his symphonies, beautiful and profoundly moving though they are, are quartet movements, only requiring a larger number of instruments because greater fullness and force were needed to make the music satisfying in a large hall. Mozart's music was entirely different in texture. One cannot imagine the slow movement of the G Minor Symphony without wood wind. Haydn knew what his music was, and what orchestration it wanted, and he never dreamed of over-orchestrating. What he would have said of such music as that of Berlioz, where the orchestration is ridiculously out of proportion to the phrases, where the orchestra makes all the effect, if any at all is made, I cannot guess. He used extra instruments when he needed them, as, for example, in the "Military" symphony. The touch of instrumentation in the andante of the "Surprise" is another instance. The idea of scaring sleepy old ladies with a sudden bang on the drums—the kettle-drum bolt—is often mentioned as an example of Haydn's "humour."
When we compare the London symphonies to the earlier ones, we feel at once a stronger, more vehement spirit driving the music on. They seem richer in themes than the others, partly because the themes are bigger, partly because they are more perfectly adapted to monodic, harmonic treatment, and out of every bar something is made. A theme is pregnant, of course, according to what a composer sees in it and gets out of it. Who would know this of old Clementi—
—if Mozart had not woven the Zauberflöte overture out of it? And who save Beethoven saw the possibilities of this?—
But Haydn had to find such themes and see their possibilities before Mozart or Beethoven, and it was only after Mozart's death he was completely successful. He still largely depended upon fanfares and key-relationships in leading from passage to passage, and getting variety while keeping unity. There is still, compared with Beethoven, a huge amount of formalistic padding; but so far as he dared and could, he was loading his rifts with ore. Such a subject as this—
—is far removed from his earlier folk-song themes, but it is further still from the old fugal type of subject. It is suited to symphonic development, and to no other kind.
The theme quoted in my first chapter is one of a singing kind, and, as if Haydn had planned the whole symphony with a prophetic glance at these remarks, the subject of the last movement is either a peasant-dance or a good imitation:
This movement is rich in invention, even for Haydn at his best; it is full of jollity far removed from vulgarity; the atmosphere is continuously fresh, almost fragrant, and there are endless touches of poetic seriousness. The Adagio is as profound as anything he wrote. Perhaps, on the whole—and it may be wrong to indicate a choice at all—the slow movement of the symphony in C is fullest of sustained loveliness. That phrase beginning
is, in its sheer beauty, reminiscent of Mozart, though the way the balance of feeling is recovered at the end is pure Haydn; there is the deepest human feeling, but perfect sanity is never lost. Towards the end the development is carried on in quite the Beethoven way, quite a long passage growing out of the simple phrase:
Nearly all Haydn's art, and a good deal of the art of Beethoven, may be found in the B flat symphony. The theme is announced in a minor form, adagio:
—taken up at once in the major, allegro, and wrought into most beautiful and expressive strains, each one growing out of the last (if I may once again use Wordsworth's magnificent word) "inevitably"; it could not be different.
This is a very paltry discussion of a great matter, but no more space can be given to it here. In spite of all that has been written since Haydn drew the final double-bar of the D symphony, all the twelve are yet worth days and nights of study. All that Haydn is not may be freely granted; but when we learn to know the London symphonies we learn to realize in some degree what a mighty inventive artist and workman he was.
CHAPTER VIII
1795-1809
During his stay in London, Haydn's good wife had asked him to buy her that house in the suburbs of Vienna which would come in so conveniently when he left her a widow. The request was not entirely wasted—that is, he bought the house, made some additions, and from 1797 lived in it himself. Here he composed The Creation, The Seasons, and the bulk of his church music; and here he died.
It is said that the notion of composing the Austrian National Hymn was suggested to Haydn by the Prussian National Hymn which George I. had brought to England with him from his beloved Hanover; but however that may be, and whether the abominable melody known then and now as "God Save the King" inspired him or not, he determined to write a tune for his countrymen, and he did. On the Emperor's birthday in 1799 the new tune was played in every theatre in the Empire. Next to the Marseillaise, it is certainly the finest thing of the sort in existence.
Salomon had wanted Haydn to write an oratorio in London, and handed him a copy of a libretto of The Creation, which one Lidley had compiled from the Bible and Milton's "Paradise Lost" for Handel. The proposal came to nothing then, but when Haydn got comfortably settled down in Vienna van Swieten repeated the suggestion. This van Swieten had been a parasitic patron of Mozart. He was an enthusiast for the older-fashioned forms of music, and he had concerts of oratorio in an institution of which he was librarian. Haydn passed on Lidley's book to him, van Swieten had it translated and doctored to suit his own taste, and Haydn set to work. He faced the task with a degree of seriousness and solemnity which the music would never suggest. In April of 1798 it was given for the first time, privately, at the Schwartzenburg Palace; in March of the following year it was given publicly at the National Theatre. From the beginning it was an electrical success, and was immediately performed everywhere. Haydn had been guaranteed 500 ducats for it, but gained very much more. In the end, in the way I have previously mentioned, it became the property of the Tonkünstler Societät of Vienna. In England it was for over half a century the "Messiah's" one great rival. Lately it has dropped out of the repertories of London and provincial choral societies. Fashions in sacred music, like fashions in popular preachers, have a trick of changing.
No sooner was The Creation fairly launched on a fairly long career than van Swieten wanted another oratorio. Somehow—or perhaps naturally—he associated oratorio with England, and as he could not get the music from us, he did as badly as he could—he came here for the poetry. The words of nearly all the oratorios are ridiculous. Those of The Creation are no worse than the words of many by Handel. Van Swieten, however, did his honest best to provide Haydn with a downright silly book for his last work, and it must be admitted that by going to James Thomson's Seasons he succeeded. Like The Creation, it rapidly became popular in Germany, Austria, and England. It went out sooner than The Creation, and went out, I suspect, also like The Creation, never to return. It was given in April, 1802, at the Schwartzenburg Palace.
During the period after his return from England—or, more exactly, from 1796 till 1802—Haydn wrote most of his bigger church works. They may be sufficiently discussed here in a few lines; for, though they are still much sung in churches where the Pope's edicts are regarded merely as things to be laughed at, musically they are by no means of the same importance as his symphonies. Like all the Viennese school of church composers, Haydn thought nothing of the canons, and, indeed—also like the others—he seemed generally to think very little of the meaning of the words. He was serious and sincere enough, no doubt, but the man was a peasant, and in many respects his mind was a peasant's. He had quite a plausible excuse or reason to give for the note of jollity which prevails in his Masses. When he thought of God, he said, his heart was filled with joy, and that joy found a voice in his music. He spoke in perfect good faith, but with a little more brains he would have had other feelings than joy in his heart at the more solemn moments of the Mass. However, he had not, so he missed giving us music to compare with the finest parts of his symphonies and quartets. What he did write would serve well for the Empire Music Hall to-day were it not so entirely monopolized by churches like the Italian in Hatton Garden, and in its day it was highly thought of. The fact that the Princes of Esterhazy did not like to be made to feel uncomfortable in church had perhaps something to do with Haydn always feeling elated when he was going to write a mass—use is second nature. Not that there are no fine things in his sacred music; only they are rare, and the spirit of the whole is utterly undevotional. After all, being the man he was, having the mission he had in life to carry out, it may be questioned whether he could have done anything nobler, in which case it is a pity he touched church music. However, it is easily forgotten, and will be some day.
Haydn wrote The Seasons, as it were, under protest, and he always declared that it gave him the finishing touch. He composed little more, but arranged accompaniments for Scotch songs for one Mr. Whyte, of Edinburgh. His powers failed fast. The last time he conducted in public, The Seven Words—now with the words—was the piece. This was in 1807. He was now without a rival in Vienna. Gluck had been dead twenty years, and Mozart had died in 1791; Beethoven was regarded as a great eccentric genius who would not rightly apply his undoubted talents. The last time Haydn was seen in public at all was on November 27, 1808. He was far too weak to dream of conducting. He was carried to the hall, and great ladies disputed as to who should be allowed to throw their wraps over him to protect him against the cold. He was taken away after the first part. He still lingered on a while. Next year—1809—Vienna was bombarded by the French, who had done the same thing in 1805, and when the victorious army came in a French officer visited him and sang "In Native Worth." On May 26 Haydn called in his servants and played the National Hymn three times; he was then carried to his bed, and on May 29, he died.
He was buried at Hundsthurm Churchyard with military honours, the French invaders helping, on June 15. Mozart's Requiem was sung later, in memoriam. In 1820 Prince Esterhazy had the remains, or such of them as had not been stolen, transferred to Eisenstadt.
CHAPTER IX
SUMMING UP
As small a proportion as possible of my space has been devoted to technical matters, and I have only used text-book terminology where no other served to explain what Haydn did in building up the symphony form. This spade-work of his Esterhazy period was of the greatest importance to himself, to Mozart and to Beethoven. He is the only composer of the first rank who did second-rate work of immense and immediate value to his successors, just as he is the only second-rate writer who ever in his age rose to be a composer of the first rank. Both as pioneer and perfecter and as great original composer I have sought roughly to place him. A few remarks about the man and his habits and characteristics may be added.
His methodical habits and neatness have already been mentioned. He must have been a first-rate companion, friend and master. His successive Princes loved him, his band adored him. He was generous; there is not a mean action to his discredit. His will was a wonder of good-feeling and discretion; and when old he was still glad to make money, that he might leave more to his poor relatives. He seems always to have been in love with one lady or another, and it was more by luck than anything else that he got into no serious scrapes. His method of working was as regular as his other habits. He sat at the piano extemporizing until he got his themes into some sort of shape, then he sketched them on paper and went to lunch. Later in the day he worked them out more fully, and proceeded to make a finished score. His scores are as neat as Beethoven's are disgracefully untidy. Haydn's way of composing at the piano—and it was Mozart's way, and Beethoven's, not to mention Wagner's—has been condemned by many theorists and theoretical writers. After seeing many of the compositions of these gentry, I wish they themselves would find and employ any other method than that they adopt at present. Haydn's cheerfulness has often been commented on, and it certainly pervades his music. He was also given to joking, but the one or two jokes which have been pointed out to me in his music would nowadays be considered in bad taste if people knew what they were meant for. Music has no sense of humour, and simply won't countenance it.
I suppose nine hundred and ninety-nine listeners in a thousand find Haydn's music a trifle tame. Now, I myself—in all humility let me say it—would not stand being bored for ten minutes by any composer, not though he were ten times as great as the greatest man who has ever lived. There is not a note of Haydn's I would not wish to hear, but there is a very great deal I would refuse to listen to twice, and much that I would only listen to in small bits at a time. Having willingly conceded this, let me warn anyone who takes up Haydn against expecting and wasting time in looking for the wrong thing, for qualities that are not in Haydn, and are not claimed for him. Especially have we to discard the text-book rubbish about his "service to art," the "tradition he established," about the "form stereotyped by him." I have just said that in his Esterhazy time he was of great service to artists, but the music he then wrote was mainly second-rate, and I am now speaking of his best. Here his form is clear enough, but one does not listen to music merely for that. His form, indeed, became formalism and formality. It was natural to a man who had spent his life in looking for a principle that he should to a degree mistake the accident for the essence. Those first and second subjects with the half-closes between—they became as dreadful in their unfailing regularity as the contrapuntal formalism they drove out of fashion. In themselves they are a weariness to the flesh; if there were nothing but them to be found in Haydn, we should not go to Haydn. But there was a great deal more. There was a poetic content, a burden, if you like, a message, in his music, and it was different from anything that had been before or has been since.
There is nothing of the gorgeous architectural splendours of Bach, nothing of Bach's depth nor high religious ecstasy. His passion, joy and sorrow are all milder than Beethoven's. He has little of Beethoven's grandeur nor feeling too deep for tears or words. As for Mozart's beauty and sadness—that blend of deep pathos with a supernal beauty of expression that transcends all human understanding—Haydn is only with the others in having none of it. The spirit of Mozart dwelt in some ethereal region not visited by any spirit before nor after him. And, finally, in Haydn there is no touch of the romantic. Romanticism was a revolt against eighteenth-century pseudo-classicism, and it had its day, and did its work, and went out. Haydn did not want to revolt against classicism, nor even pseudo-classicism.
In fact, in music Haydn stands for classicism, and this is no contradiction of what I have written about his throwing away the formulas of his predecessors. When we talk of classical music we mean Haydn's. He created the thing, and it ended with him. He has sanity lucidity, pointedness, sometimes epigrammatic piquancy, of expression, dignity without pompousness or grandiloquence, feeling without hysteria. His variety seems endless, his energy never flags, and often he has more than a touch of the divine quality. He did not attempt to compose tragedies of life, for his temperament forbade it; but in his finest music he is never commonplace, because he had a strongly marked temperament and was poetically inspired. By dint of a sincerity that was perfect he made music which, though it is shaped in outline by the classical spirit, will be for ever interesting. To listen to him immediately after Tschaikowsky is hard, sometimes impossible, yet to me it seems anything but impossible that our descendants will be listening to him when students are turning to the biographical dictionaries to find out who Tschaikowsky was. A century ago Haydn was as fresh and novel as Tschaikowsky is now, and as overwhelming a personality in the world of music as the mighty Wagner. But time equalizes and evens things, and in another hundred years all that is merely up-to-date in musical speech and phraseology will have lost its flavour and seductiveness; but the voice that is sincere, whether the word is spoken to-day or was spoken a century ago, will sound as clear as ever, and the one voice shall not be clearer nor more convincing than the other.