Books: Haydn

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Lesson at St. Stephen's

But it all amounted to very little. There was the regular
drilling for the church services, to be sure: solfeggi and
psalms, psalms and solfeggi--always apt to degenerate, under a
pedant, into the dreariest of mechanical routine. How many a
sweet-voiced chorister, even in our own days, reaches manhood
with a love for music? It needs music in his soul. Haydn's soul
withstood the numbing influence of pedantry. He realized that it
lay with himself to develop and nurture the powers within his
breast of which he was conscious. "The talent was in me," he
remarked, "and by dint of hard work I managed to get on." Shortly
before his death, when he happened to be in Vienna for some
church festival, he had an opportunity of speaking to the choir-
boys of that time. "I was once a singing boy," he said. "Reutter
brought me from Hainburg to Vienna. I was industrious when my
companions were at play. I used to take my little clavier under
my arm, and go off to practice undisturbed. When I sang a solo,
the baker near St Stephen's yonder always gave me a cake as a
present. Be good and industrious, and serve God continually."

A Sixteen-Part Mass!

It is pathetic to think of the boy assiduously scratching
innumerable notes on scraps of music paper, striving with yet
imperfect knowledge to express himself, and hoping that by some
miracle of inspiration something like music might come out of it.
"I thought it must be all right if the paper was nice and full,"
he said. He even went the length of trying to write a mass in
sixteen parts--an effort which Reutter rewarded with a shrug and
a sneer, and the sarcastic suggestion that for the present two
parts might be deemed sufficient, and that he had better perfect
his copying of music before trying to compose it. But Haydn was
not to be snubbed and snuffed out in this way. He appealed to his
father for money to buy some theory books. There was not too much
money at Rohrau, we may be sure, for the family was always
increasing, and petty economies were necessary. But the
wheelwright managed to send the boy six florins, and that sum was
immediately expended on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum and Mattheson's
Volkommener Capellmeister--heavy, dry treatises both, which have
long since gone to the musical antiquary's top shelf among the
dust and the cobwebs. These "dull and verbose dampers to
enthusiasm" Haydn made his constant companions, in default of a
living instructor, and, like Longfellow's "great men," toiled
upwards in the night, while less industrious mortals snored.

Juvenile Escapades

Meanwhile his native exuberance and cheerfulness of soul were
irrepressible. Several stories are told of the schoolboy
escapades he enjoyed with his fellow choristers. One will suffice
here. He used to boast that he had sung with success at Court as
well as in St Stephen's. This meant that he had made one of the
choir when visits were paid to the Palace of Schonbrunn, where
the Empress Maria and her Court resided. On the occasion of one
of these visits the palace was in the hands of the builders, and
the scaffolding presented the usual temptation to the youngsters.
"The empress," to quote Pohl, "had caught them climbing it many a
time, but her threats and prohibitions had no effect. One day
when Haydn was balancing himself aloft, far above his
schoolfellows, the empress saw him from the windows, and
requested her Hofcompositor to take care that 'that fair-headed
blockhead,' the ringleader of them all, got 'einen recenten
Schilling' (slang for 'a good hiding')." The command was only too
willingly obeyed by the obsequious Reutter, who by this time had
been ennobled, and rejoiced in the addition of "von" to his name.
Many years afterwards, when the empress was on a visit to Prince
Esterhazy, the "fair-headed blockhead" took the cruel delight of
thanking her for this rather questionable mark of Imperial
favour!

"Sang like a Crow"

As a matter of fact, the empress, however she may have thought of
Haydn the man, showed herself anything but considerate to Haydn
the choir-boy. The future composer's younger brother, Michael,
had now arrived in Vienna, and had been admitted to the St
Stephen's choir. His voice is said to have been "stronger and of
better quality" than Joseph's, which had almost reached the
"breaking" stage; and the empress, complaining to Reutter that
Joseph "sang like a crow," the complacent choirmaster put Michael
in his place. The empress was so pleased with the change that she
personally complimented Michael, and made him a present of 24
ducats.

Dismissed from St. Stephen's

One thing leads to another. Reutter, it is obvious, did not like
Haydn, and any opportunity of playing toady to the empress was
too good to be lost. Unfortunately Haydn himself provided the
opportunity. Having become possessed of a new pair of scissors,
he was itching to try their quality. The pig-tail of the
chorister sitting before him offered an irresistible attraction;
one snip and lo! the plaited hair lay at his feet. Discipline
must be maintained; and Reutter sentenced the culprit to be caned
on the hand. This was too great an indignity for poor Joseph, by
this time a youth of seventeen--old enough, one would have
thought, to have forsworn such boyish mischief. He declared that
he would rather leave the cathedral service than submit. "You
shall certainly leave," retorted the Capellmeister, "but you must
be caned first." And so, having received his caning, Haydn was
sent adrift on the streets of Vienna, a broken-voiced chorister,
without a coin in his pocket, and with only poverty staring him
in the face. This was in November 1749.

CHAPTER II

VIENNA--1750-1760

Vienna--The Forlorn Ex-Chorister--A Good Samaritan--Haydn
Enskied--Street Serenades--Joins a Pilgrim Party--An
Unconditional Loan--"Attic" Studies--An Early Composition--
Metastasio--A Noble Pupil--Porpora--Menial Duties--Emanuel Bach--
Haydn his Disciple--Violin Studies--Attempts at "Programme"
Music--First Opera--An Aristocratic Appointment--Taken for an
Impostor--A Count's Capellmeister--Falls in Love--Marries--His
Wife.

Vienna

The Vienna into which Haydn was thus cast, a friendless and
forlorn youth of seventeen, was not materially different from the
Vienna of today. While the composer was still living, one who had
made his acquaintance wrote of the city: "Represent to yourself
an assemblage of palaces and very neat houses, inhabited by the
most opulent families of one of the greatest monarchies in
Europe--by the only noblemen to whom that title may still be with
justice applied. The women here are attractive; a brilliant
complexion adorns an elegant form; the natural but sometimes
languishing and tiresome air of the ladies of the north of
Germany is mingled with a little coquetry and address, the effect
of the presence of a numerous Court...In a word, pleasure has
taken possession of every heart." This was written when Haydn was
old and famous; it might have been written when his name was yet
unknown.

Vienna was essentially a city of pleasure--a city inhabited by "a
proud and wealthy nobility, a prosperous middle class, and a
silent, if not contented, lower class." In 1768, Leopold Mozart,
the father of the composer, declared that the Viennese public had
no love of anything serious or sensible; "they cannot even
understand it, and their theatres furnish abundant proof that
nothing but utter trash, such as dances, burlesques,
harlequinades, ghost tricks, and devils' antics will go down with
them." There is, no doubt, a touch of exaggeration in all this,
but it is sufficiently near the truth to let us understand the
kind of attention which the disgraced chorister of St Stephen's
was likely to receive from the musical world of Vienna. It was
Vienna, we may recall, which dumped Mozart into a pauper's grave,
and omitted even to mark the spot.

The Forlorn Ex-Chorister

Young Haydn, then, was wandering, weary and perplexed, through
its streets, with threadbare clothes on his back and nothing in
his purse. There was absolutely no one to whom he could think of
turning. He might, indeed, have taken the road to Rohrau and been
sure of a warm welcome from his humble parents there. But there
were good reasons why he should not make himself a burden on
them; and, moreover, he probably feared that at home he would run
some risk of being tempted to abandon his cherished profession.
Frau Haydn had not yet given up the hope of seeing her boy made a
priest, and though we have no definite information that Haydn
himself felt a decided aversion to taking orders, it is evident
that he was disinclined to hazard the danger of domestic
pressure. He had now finally made up his mind that he would be a
composer; but he saw clearly enough that, for the present, he
must work, and work, too, not for fame, but for bread.

A Good Samaritan

Musing on these things while still parading the streets, tired
and hungry, he met one Spangler, a tenor singer of his
acquaintance, who earned a pittance at the Church of St Michael.
Spangler was a poor man--but it is ever the poor who are most
helpful to each other--and, taking pity on the dejected outcast,
he invited Haydn to share his garret rooms along with his wife
and child. It is regrettable that nothing more is known of this
good Samaritan--one of those obscure benefactors who go through
the world doing little acts of kindness, never perhaps even
suspecting how far-reaching will be the results. He must have
died before Haydn, otherwise his name would certainly have
appeared in his will.

Haydn Enskied

Haydn remained with Spangler in that "ghastly garret" all through
the winter of l749-1750. He has been commiserated on the garret--
needlessly, to be sure. Garrets are famous, in literary annals at
any rate; and is it not Leigh Hunt who reminds us that the top
story is healthier than the basement? The poor poet in Pope, who
lay high in Drury Lane, "lull'd by soft zephyrs through the
broken pane," found profit, doubtless, in his "neighbourhood with
the stars." However that may be, there, in Spangler's attic, was
Haydn enskied, eager for work--work of any kind, so long as it
had fellowship with music and brought him the bare means of
subsistence.

"Scanning his whole horizon
In quest of what he could clap eyes on,"

he sought any and every means of making money. He tried to get
teaching, with what success has not been recorded. He sang in
choirs, played at balls and weddings and baptisms, made
"arrangements" for anybody who would employ him, and in short
drudged very much as Wagner did at the outset of his tempestuous
career.

Street Serenades

He even took part in street serenades by playing the violin. This
last was not a very dignified occupation; but it is important to
remember that serenading in Vienna was not the lover's business
of Italy and Spain, where the singer is accompanied by guitar or
mandoline. It was a much more serious entertainment. It dated
from the seventeenth century, if we are to trust Praetorius, and
consisted of solos and concerted vocal music in various forms,
accompanied sometimes by full orchestra and sometimes by wind
instruments alone. Great composers occasionally honoured their
patrons and friends with the serenade; and composers who hoped to
be great found it advantageous as a means of gaining a hearing
for their works. It proved of some real service to Haydn later
on, but in the meantime it does not appear to have swelled his
lean purse. With all his industry he fell into the direst straits
now and again, and was more than once driven into wild projects
by sheer stress of hunger.

Joins a Pilgrim Party

One curious story is told of a journey to Mariazell, in Styria.
This picturesquely-situated village has been for many years the
most frequented shrine in Austria. Today it is said to be visited
by something like 100,000 pilgrims every year. The object of
adoration is the miraculous image of the Madonna and Child,
twenty inches high, carved in lime-wood, which was presented to
the Mother Church of Mariazell in 1157 by a Benedictine priest.
Haydn was a devout Catholic, and not improbably knew all about
Mariazell and its Madonna. At any rate, he joined a company of
pilgrims, and on arrival presented himself to the local
choirmaster for admission, showing the official some of his
compositions, and telling of his eight years' training at St
Stephen's. The choirmaster was not impressed. "I have had enough
of lazy rascals from Vienna," said he. "Be off!" But Haydn, after
coming so far, was not to be dismissed so unceremoniously. He
smuggled himself into the choir, pleaded with the solo singer of
the day to be allowed to act as his deputy, and, when this was
refused, snatched the music from the singer's hand, and took up
the solo at the right moment with such success that "all the
choir held their breath to listen." At the close of the service
the choirmaster sent for him, and, apologizing for his previous
rude behaviour, invited him to his house for the day. The
invitation extended to, a week, and Haydn returned to Vienna with
money enough--the result of a subscription among the choir--to
serve his immediate needs.

An Unconditional Loan

But it would have been strange if, in a musical city like Vienna,
a youth of Haydn's gifts had been allowed to starve. Slowly but
surely he made his way, and people who could help began to hear
of him. The most notable of his benefactors at this time was a
worthy tradesman named Buchholz, who made him an unconditional
loan of 150 florins. An echo of this unexpected favour is heard
long years after in the composer's will, where we read: "To
Fraulein Anna Buchholz, 100 florins, inasmuch as in my youth her
grandfather lent me 150 florins when I greatly needed them,
which, however, I repaid fifty years ago."

"Attic" Studies

One hundred and fifty florins was no great sum assuredly, but at
this time it was a small fortune to Haydn. He was able to do a
good many things with it. First of all, he took a lodging for
himself--another attic! Spangler had been very kind, but he could
not give the young musician the privacy needed for study. It
chanced that there was a room vacant, "nigh to the gods and the
clouds," in the old Michaelerhaus in the Kohlmarkt, and Haydn
rented it. It was not a very comfortable room--just big enough to
allow the poor composer to turn about. It was dimly lighted. It
"contained no stove, and the roof was in such bad repair that the
rain and the snow made unceremonious entry and drenched the young
artist in his bed. In winter the water in his jug froze so hard
during the night that he had to go and draw direct from the
well." For neighbours he had successively a journeyman printer, a
footman and a cook. These were not likely to respect his desire
for quiet, but the mere fact of his having a room all to himself
made him oblivious of external annoyances. As he expressed it, he
was "too happy to envy the lot of kings." He had his old, worm-
eaten spinet, and his health and his good spirits; and although
he was still poor and unknown, he was "making himself all the
time," like Sir Walter Scott in Liddesdale.

An Early Composition

Needless to say, he was composing a great deal. Much of his
manuscript was, of course, torn up or consigned to the flames,
but one piece of work survived. This was his first Mass in F (No.
11 in Novello's edition), erroneously dated by some writers 1742.
It shows signs of immaturity and inexperience, but when Haydn in
his old age came upon the long-forgotten score he was so far from
being displeased with it that he rearranged the music, inserting
additional wind parts. One biographer sees in this procedure "a
striking testimony to the genius of the lad of eighteen." We need
not read it in that way. It rather shows a natural human
tenderness for his first work, a weakness, some might call it,
but even so, more pardonable than the weakness--well illustrated
by some later instances--of hunting out early productions and
publishing them without a touch of revision.

Metastasio

It was presumably by mere chance that in that same rickety
Michaelerhaus there lived at this date not only the future
composer of "The Creation," but the Scribe of the eighteenth
century, the poet and opera librettist, Metastasio. Born in 1698,
the son of humble parents, this distinguished writer had, like
Haydn, suffered from "the eternal want of pence." A precocious
boy, he had improvised verses and recited them on the street, and
fame came to him only after long and weary years of waiting. In
1729 he was appointed Court poet to the theatre at Vienna, for
which he wrote several of his best pieces, and when he made
Haydn's acquaintance his reputation was high throughout the whole
of Europe. Naturally, he did not live so near the clouds as
Haydn--his rooms were on the third story--but he heard somehow of
the friendless, penniless youth in the attic, and immediately
resolved to do what he could to further his interests. This, as
events proved, was by no means inconsiderable.

A Noble Pupil

Metastasio had been entrusted with the education of Marianne von
Martinez, the daughter of a Spanish gentleman who was Master of
the Ceremonies to the Apostolic Nuncio. The young lady required a
musicmaster, and the poet engaged Haydn to teach her the
harpsichord, in return for which service he was to receive free
board. Fraulein Martinez became something of a musical celebrity.
When she was only seventeen she had a mass performed at St
Michael's Church, Vienna. She was a favourite of the Empress
Maria Theresa, and is extolled by Burney--who speaks of her
"marvelous accuracy" in the writing of English--as a singer and a
player, almost as highly as Gluck's niece. Her name finds a place
in the biographies of Mozart, who, at her musical receptions,
used to take part with her in duets of her own composition.
Several of her manuscripts are still in the possession of the
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Something of her musical
distinction ought certainly to be attributed to Haydn, who gave
her daily lessons for three years, during which time he was
comfortably housed with the family.

Porpora

It was through Metastasio, too, that he was introduced to Niccolo
Porpora, the famous singing-master who taught the great
Farinelli, and whose name is sufficiently familiar from its
connection with an undertaking set on foot by Handel's enemies in
London. Porpora seems at this time to have ruled Vienna as a sort
of musical director and privileged censor, to have been, in fact,
what Rossini was for many years in Paris. He was giving lessons
to the mistress of Correr, the Venetian ambassador--a "rare
musical enthusiast"--and he employed Haydn to act as accompanist
during the lessons.

We get a curious insight into the social conditions of the
musicians of this time in the bearing of Haydn towards Porpora
and his pupil. That Haydn should become the instructor of
Fraulein Martinez in no way compromised his dignity; nor can any
reasonable objection be raised against his filling the post of,
accompanist to the ambassador's mistress. But what shall be said
of his being transported to the ambassador's summer quarters at
Mannersdorf, and doing duty there for six ducats a month and his
board--at the servants' table? The reverend author of Music and
Morals answers by reminding us that in those days musicians were
not the confidential advisers of kings like Wagner, rich banker's
sons like Meyerbeer, private gentlemen like Mendelssohn, and
members of the Imperial Parliament like Verdi. They were "poor
devils" like Haydn. Porpora was a great man, no doubt, in his own
metier. But it is surely odd to hear of Haydn acting the part of
very humble servant to the singing-master; blackening his boots
and trimming his wig, and brushing his coat, and running his
errands, and playing his accompaniments! Let us, however,
remember Haydn's position and circumstances. He was a poor man.
He had never received any regular tuition such as Handel received
from Zachau, Mozart from his father, and Mendelssohn from Zelter.
He had to pick up his instruction as he went along; and if he
felt constrained to play the lackey to Porpora, it was only with
the object of receiving in return something which would help to
fit him for his profession. As he naively said, "I improved
greatly in singing, composition, and Italian." [The relations of
Haydn and Porpora are sketched in George Sand's "Consuelo."]

Emanuel Bach

In the meantime he was carrying on his private studies with the
greatest assiduity. His Fux and his Mattheson had served their
turn, and he had now supplemented them by the first six Clavier
Sonatas of Philipp Emanuel Bach, the third son of the great
composer. The choice may seem curious when we remember that Haydn
had at his hand all the music of Handel and Bach, and the masters
of the old contrapuntal school. But it was wisely made. The
simple, well-balanced form of Emanuel Bach's works "acted as well
as a master's guidance upon him, and led him to the first steps
in that style of writing which was afterwards one of his greatest
glories." The point is admirably put by Sir Hubert Parry. He
says, in effect, that what Haydn had to build upon, and what was
most congenial to him, through his origin and circumstances, was
the popular songs and dances of his native land, which, in the
matter of structure, belong to the same order of art as
symphonies and sonatas; and how this kind of music could be made
on a grander scale was what he wanted to discover. The music of
Handel and Bach leaned too much towards the style of the choral
music and organ music of the church to serve him as a model. For
their art was essentially contrapuntal--the combination of
several parts each of equal importance with the rest, each in a
sense pursuing its own course. In modern music the essential
principle is harmonic: the chords formed by the combination of
parts are derived and developed in reference to roots and keys.
In national dances few harmonies are used, but they are arranged
on the same principles as the harmonies of a sonata or a
symphony; and "what had to be found out in order to make grand
instrumental works was how to arrange more harmonies with the
same effect of unity as is obtained on a small scale in dances
and national songs." Haydn, whose music contains many
reminiscences of popular folk-song, had in him the instinct for
this kind of art; and the study of Philipp Emanuel's works taught
him how to direct his energies in the way that was most agreeable
to him.

Although much has been written about Emanuel Bach, it is probable
that the full extent of his genius remains yet to be recognized.
He was the greatest clavier player, teacher and accompanist of
his day; a master of form, and the pioneer of a style which was a
complete departure from that of his father. Haydn's enthusiasm
for him can easily be explained. "I did not leave the clavier
till I had mastered all his six sonatas," he says, "and those who
know me well must be aware that I owe very much to Emanuel Bach,
whose works I understand and have thoroughly studied. Emanuel
Bach himself once complimented me on this fact." When Haydn began
to make a name Bach hailed him with delight as a disciple, and
took occasion to send him word that, "he alone had thoroughly
comprehended his works and made a proper use of them."

This is a sufficient answer to the absurd statement which has
been made, and is still sometimes repeated, that Bach was jealous
of the young composer and abused him to his friends. A writer in
the European Magazine for October 1784., says that Bach was
"amongst the number of professors who wrote against our rising
author." He mentions others as doing the same thing, and then
continues: "The only notice Haydn took of their scurrility and
abuse was to publish lessons written in imitation of the several
styles of his enemies, in which their peculiarities were so
closely copied and their extraneous passages (particularly those
of Bach of Hamburg) so inimitably burlesqued, that they all felt
the poignancy of his musical wit, confessed its truth, and were
silent." Further on we read that the sonatas of Ops. 13 and 14
were "expressly composed in order to ridicule Bach of Hamburg."
All this is manifestly a pure invention. Many of the
peculiarities of Emanuel Bach's style are certainly to be found
in Haydn's works--notes wide apart, pause bars, surprise
modulations, etc., etc.--but if every young composer who adopts
the tricks of his model is to be charged with caricature, few can
hope to escape. The truth is, of course, that every man's style,
whether in music or in writing, is a "mingled yarn" of many
strands, and it serves no good purpose to unravel it, even if we
could.

Violin Studies

Haydn's chief instrument was the clavier, but in addition to that
he diligently practiced the violin. It was at this date that he
took lessons on the latter instrument from "a celebrated
virtuoso." The name is not mentioned, but the general opinion is
that Dittersdorf was the instructor. This eminent musician
obtained a situation as violinist in the Court Orchestra at
Vienna in 1760; and, curiously enough, after many years of
professional activity, succeeded Haydn's brother, Michael, as
Capellmeister to the Bishop of Groswardein in Hungary. He wrote
an incredible amount of music, and his opera, "Doctor and
Apotheker," by which he eclipsed Mozart at one time, has survived
up to the present. Whether or not he gave Haydn lessons on the
violin, it is certain that the pair became intimate friends, and
had many happy days and some practical jokes together. One story
connected with their names sounds apocryphal, but there is no
harm in quoting it. Haydn and Dittersdorf were strolling down a
back street when they heard a fiddler scraping away in a little
beer cellar. Haydn, entering, inquired, "Whose minuet is that you
are playing?" "Haydn's," answered the fiddler. "It's a--bad
minuet," replied Haydn, whereupon the enraged player turned upon
him and would have broken his head with the fiddle had not
Dittersdorf dragged him away.

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