Books: Haydn

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Haydn set to work on "The Creation" with all the ardour of a
first love. Naumann suggests that his high spirits were due to
the "enthusiastic plaudits of the English people," and that the
birth of both "The Creation" and "The Seasons" was
"unquestionably owing to the new man he felt within himself after
his visit to England." There was now, in short, burning within
his breast, "a spirit of conscious strength which he knew not he
possessed, or knowing, was unaware of its true worth." This is
somewhat exaggerated. Handel wrote "The Messiah" in twenty-four
days; it took Haydn the best part of eighteen months to complete
"The Creation," from which we may infer that "the sad laws of
time" had not stopped their operation simply because he had been
to London. No doubt, as we have already more than hinted, he was
roused and stimulated by the new scenes and the unfamiliar modes
of life which he saw and experienced in England. His temporary
release from the fetters of official life had also an
exhilarating influence. So much we learn indeed from himself.
Thus, writing from London to Frau von Genzinger, he says: "Oh, my
dear, good lady, how sweet is some degree of liberty! I had a
kind prince, but was obliged at times to be dependent on base
souls. I often sighed for freedom, and now I have it is not the
first time that your muse and Haydn's have met, as we see from
the beautiful canzonets. Would he had been directed by you about
the words to 'The Creation'! It is lamentable to see such divine
music joined with such miserable broken English. He (Haydn) wrote
me lately that in three years, by the performance of 'The
Creation' and 'The Seasons' at Vienna, 40,000 florins had been
raised for the poor families of musicians." in some measure. I am
quite sensible of this benefit, though my mind is burdened with
more work. The consciousness of being no longer a bond-servant
sweetens all my toils." If this liberty, this contact with new
people and new forms of existence, had come to Haydn twenty years
earlier, it might have altered the whole current of his career.
But it did not help him much in the actual composition of "The
Creation," which he found rather a tax, alike on his inspiration
and his physical powers. Writing to Breitkopf & Hartel on June
12, 1799, he says: "The world daily pays me many compliments,
even on the fire of my last works; but no one could believe the
strain and effort it costs me to produce these, inasmuch as many
a day my feeble memory and the unstrung state of my nerves so
completely crush me to the earth, that I fall into the most
melancholy condition, so much so that for days afterwards I am
incapable of finding one single idea, till at length my heart is
revived by Providence, when I seat myself at the piano and begin
once more to hammer away at it. Then all goes well again, God be
praised!"

Self-Criticism

In the same letter he remarks that, "as for myself, now an old
man, I hope the critics may not handle my 'Creation' with too
great severity, and be too hard on it. They may perhaps find the
musical orthography faulty in various passages, and perhaps other
things also which I have for so many years been accustomed to
consider as minor points; but the genuine connoisseur will see
the real cause as readily as I do, and will willingly cast aside
such stumbling blocks." It is impossible to miss the significance
of all this.

[At this point in the original book, a facsimile of a letter
regarding "The Creation" takes up the entire next page.]

Certainly it ought to be taken into account in any critical
estimate of "The Creation"; for when a man admits his own
shortcomings it is ungracious, to say the least, for an outsider
to insist upon them. It is obvious at any rate that Haydn
undertook the composition of the oratorio in no light-hearted
spirit. "Never was I so pious," he says, "as when composing 'The
Creation.' I felt myself so penetrated with religious feeling
that before I sat down to the pianoforte I prayed to God with
earnestness that He would enable me to praise Him worthily." In
the lives of the great composers there is only one parallel to
this frame of mind--the religious fervour in which Handel
composed "The Messiah."

First Performance of the Oratorio

The first performance of "The Creation" was of a purely private
nature. It took place at the Schwartzenburg Palace, Vienna, on
the 29th of April 1798, the performers being a body of
dilettanti, with Haydn presiding over the orchestra. Van Swieten
had been exerting himself to raise a guarantee fund for the
composer, and the entire proceeds of the performance, amounting
to £350, were paid over to him. Haydn was unable to describe his
sensations during the progress of the work. "One moment," he
says, "I was as cold as ice, the next I seemed on fire; more than
once I thought I should have a fit." A year later, on the l9th of
March 1799, to give the exact date, the oratorio was first heard
publicly at the National Theatre in Vienna, when it produced the
greatest effect. The play-bill announcing the performance (see
next page) had a very ornamental border, and was, of course, in
German.

[At this point in the original book, a facsimile of the first
play-bill for "The Creation" takes up the entire next page.]

Next year the score was published by Breitkopf & Hartel, and no
fewer than 510 copies, nearly half the number subscribed for,
came to England. The title-page was printed both in German and
English, the latter reading as follows: "The Creation: an
Oratorio composed by Joseph Haydn, Doctor of Musik, and member of
the Royal Society of Musik, in Sweden, in actuel (sic) service of
His Highness the Prince of Esterhazy, Vienna, l800." Clementi had
just set up a musical establishment in London, and on August 22,
1800, we find Haydn writing to his publishers to complain that he
was in some danger of losing 2000 gulden by Clementi's non-
receipt of a consignment of copies.

London Performances

Salomon, strangely enough, had threatened Haydn with penalties
for pirating his text, but he thought better of the matter, and
now wrote to the composer for a copy of the score, so that he
might produce the oratorio in London. He was, however,
forestalled by Ashley, who was at that time giving performances
of oratorio at Covent Garden Theatre, and who brought forward the
new work on the 28th of March (1800). An amusing anecdote is told
in this connection. The score arrived by a King's messenger from
Vienna on Saturday, March 22, at nine o'clock in the evening. It
was handed to Thomas Goodwin, the copyist of the theatre, who
immediately had the parts copied out for 120 performers. The
performance was on the Friday evening following, and when Mr.
Harris, the proprietor of the theatre, complimented all parties
concerned on their expedition, Goodwin, with ready wit, replied:
"Sir, we have humbly emulated a great example; it is not the
first time that the Creation has been completed in six days."
Salomon followed on the 21st of April with a performance at the
King's Theatre, Mara and Dussek taking the principal parts. Mara
remarked that it was the first time she had accompanied an
orchestra!

French Enthusiasm

Strange to say--for oratorio has never been much at home in
France--"The Creation" was received with immense enthusiasm in
Paris when it was first performed there in the summer of this
same year. Indeed, the applause was so great that the artists, in
a fit of transport, and to show their personal regard for the
composer, resolved to present him with a large gold medal. The
medal was designed by the famous engraver, Gateaux. It was
adorned on one side with a likeness of Haydn, and on the other
side with an ancient lyre, over which a flame flickered in the
midst of a circle of stars. The inscription ran: "Homage a Haydn
par les Musiciens qui ont execute l'oratorio de la Creation du
Monde au Theatre des Arts l'au ix de la Republique Francais ou
MDCCC." The medal was accompanied by a eulogistic address, to
which the recipient duly replied in a rather flowery epistle. "I
have often," he wrote, "doubted whether my name would survive me,
but your goodness inspires me with confidence, and the token of
esteem with which you have honoured me perhaps justifies my hope
that I shall not wholly die. Yes, gentlemen, you have crowned my
gray hairs, and strewn flowers on the brink of my grave." Seven
years after this Haydn received another medal from Paris--from
the Societe Academique des Enfants d'Apollon, who had elected him
an honorary member.

A second performance of "The Creation" took place in the French
capital on December 24, 1800, when Napoleon I. escaped the
infernal machine in the Rue Nicaise. It was, however, in England,
the home of oratorio, that the work naturally took firmest root.
It was performed at the Worcester Festival of 1800, at the
Hereford Festival of the following year, and at Gloucester in
1802. Within a few years it had taken its place by the side of
Handel's best works of the kind, and its popularity remained
untouched until Mendelssohn's "Elijah" was heard at Birmingham in
1847. Even now, although it has lost something of its old-time
vogue, it is still to be found in the repertory of our leading
choral societies. It is said that when a friend urged Haydn to
hurry the completion of the oratorio, he replied: "I spend much
time over it because I intend it to last a long time." How
delighted he would have been could he have foreseen that it would
still be sung and listened to with pleasure in the early years of
the twentieth century.

"The Creation" criticized

No one thinks of dealing critically with the music of "The
Messiah"; and it seems almost as thankless a task to take the
music of "The Creation" to pieces. Schiller called it a
"meaningless hotch-potch"; and even Beethoven, though he was not
quite innocent of the same thing himself, had his sardonic laugh
over its imitations of beasts and birds. Critics of the oratorio
seldom fail to point out these "natural history effects"--to
remark on "the sinuous motion of the worm," "the graceful
gamboling of the leviathan," the orchestral imitations of the
bellowing of the "heavy beasts," and such like. It is probably
indefensible on purely artistic grounds. But Handel did it in
"Israel in Egypt" and elsewhere. And is there not a crowing cock
in Bach's "St Matthew Passion"? Haydn only followed the example
of his predecessors.

Of course, the dispassionate critic cannot help observing that
there is in "The Creation" a good deal of music which is
finicking and something which is trumpery. But there is also much
that is first-rate. The instrumental representation of chaos, for
example, is excellent, and nothing in all the range of oratorio
produces a finer effect than the soft voices at the words, "And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Even the
fortissimo C major chord on the word "light," coming abruptly
after the piano and mezzoforte minor chords, is as dazzling today
as it was when first sung. It has been said that the work is
singularly deficient in sustained choruses. That is true, if we
are comparing it with the choruses of Handel's oratorios. But
Haydn's style is entirely different from that of Handel. His
choruses are designed on a much less imposing scale. They are
more reflective or descriptive, much less dramatic. It was not in
his way "to strike like a thunderbolt," as Mozart said of Handel.
The descriptive effects which he desired to introduce into his
orchestration made it necessary that he should throw the vocal
element into a simpler mould. Allowance must be made for these
differences. Haydn could never have written "The Messiah," but,
on the other hand, Handel could never have written "The
Creation."

The chief beauty of Haydn's work lies in its airs for the solo
voices. While never giving consummate expression to real and deep
emotion, much less sustained thought, they are never wanting in
sincerity, and the melody and the style are as pure and good as
those of the best Italian writing for the stage. With all our
advance it is impossible to resist the freshness of "With verdure
clad," and the tender charm of such settings as that of "Softly
purling, glides on, thro' silent vales, the limpid brook." On the
whole, however, it is difficult to sum up a work like "The
Creation," unless, as has been cynically remarked, one is
prepared to call it great and never go to hear it. It is not
sublime, but neither is it dull. In another fifty years, perhaps,
the critic will be able to say that its main interest is largely
historic and literary. [See J. F. Runciman's Old Scores and New
Readings, where an admirably just and concise appreciation of
Haydn and "The Creation" may be read.]

A New Work

After such an unexpected success as that of "The Creation," it
was only in the nature of things that Haydn's friends should
persuade him to undertake the composition of a second work of the
kind. Van Swieten was insistent, and the outcome of his
importunity was "The Seasons." This work is generally classed as
an oratorio, but it ought more properly to be called a cantata,
being essentially secular as regards its text, though the form
and style are practically the same as those of "The Creation."
The libretto was again due to Swieten, who, of course, adapted
the text from James Thomson's well-known poem.

The Seasons

It would certainly have been a pity to lose such a fresh,
melodious little work as "The Seasons"; but it is only too
apparent that while there was no appreciable failure of Haydn's
creative force, his physical strength was not equal to the strain
involved by a composition of such length. In 1806, when Dies
found him rather weaker than usual, he dolorously remarked: "You
see it is all over with me. Eight years ago it was different, but
'The Seasons' brought on this weakness. I ought never to have
undertaken that work. It gave me the finishing stroke." He
appears to have started on the work with great reluctance and
with considerable distrust of his own powers, but once fairly
committed to the undertaking he entered into it with something of
his old animation, disputing so manfully with his librettist over
certain points in the text that a serious rupture between the two
was at one time imminent. The subject was probably not very
congenial to Haydn, who, as the years advanced, was more and more
inclined towards devotional themes. That at least seems to be the
inference to be drawn from the remark which he made to the
Emperor Francis on being asked which of his two oratorios he
himself preferred. "'The Creation,'" answered Haydn. "In 'The
Creation' angels speak and their talk is of God; in 'The Seasons'
no one higher speaks than Farmer Simon."

"The Seasons" criticized

But whether he liked the theme or not, in the end he produced a
work as fresh and genial and melodious as if it had been the work
of his prime. If anyone sees in it an evidence of weakness, he is
seeing only what he had expected to see. As Mr. Rockstro remarks,
not a trace of the "failing power" of which the grand old man
complained is to be found in any part of it. It is a model of
descriptive, contemplative work, and must please by its
thoughtful beauty and illustrative power. True to Nature in its
minutest details, it yet never insults her by trivial attempts at
outward imitation where artistic suggestion of the hidden truth
was, possible. The "delicious softness" of the opening chorus,
and the perfection of rustic happiness portrayed in the song
which describes the joy of the "impatient husbandman" are alone
sufficient to prove that, whatever he may have thought about it
himself, Haydn's genius was not appreciably waning.

The first performance of "The Seasons" took place at the
Schwartzenburg Palace on the 24th of April 1801. It was repeated
twice within a week; and on the 29th of May the composer
conducted a grand public performance at the Redoutensaal. The
work proved almost as successful as "The Creation." Haydn was
enraptured with it, but he was never really himself again. As he
said, it gave him the finishing stroke.

CHAPTER VIII

LAST YEARS

Failing Strength--Last Works--A Scottish Admirer--Song
Accompaniments--Correspondence with George Thomson--Mrs. Jordan--
A Hitch--A "Previous" Letter of Condolence--Eventide--Last Public
Appearance--The End--Funeral Honours--Desecration of Remains.

Failing Strength

Little is left to be told of the years which followed the
production of "The Seasons." Haydn never really recovered from
the strain which that last great effort of his genius had
entailed. From his letters and the reminiscences of his friends
we can read only too plainly the story of his growing infirmity.
Even in 1799 he spoke of the diminution of his mental powers, and
exclaimed: "Oh, God! how much yet remains to be done in this
splendid art, even by a man like myself!" In 1802 he wrote of
himself as "a gradually decaying veteran," enjoying only the
feeble health which is "the inseparable companion of a gray-
haired man of seventy." In December 1803 he made his last public
exertion by conducting the "Seven Words" for the hospital fund at
the Redoutensaal, and shortly afterwards wrote sadly of his "very
great weakness." In 1804 he was asked to direct a performance of
"The Creation," but declined on the score of failing strength.
Gradually he withdrew himself almost entirely from the outside
world, his general languor broken only by the visits of friends
and by moods of passing cheerfulness. Cherubini, the Abbe Vogler,
Pleyel, the Weber family, Hummel, Reichardt, and many others came
to see him. Visits from members of the Esterhazy family gave him
much pleasure. Mozart's widow also brought her son Wolfgang, to
beg his blessing on the occasion of his first public concert in
April 1805, for which he had composed a cantata in honour of
Haydn's seventy-third birthday. But the homage of friends and
admirers could not strengthen the weak hands or confirm the
feeble knees. In 1806 Dies notes that his once-gleaming eye has
become dull and heavy and his complexion sallow, while he suffers
from "headache, deafness, forgetfulness and other pains." His old
gaiety has completely gone, and even his friends have become a
bore to him. "My remaining days," he said to Dies, "must all be
spent in this lonely fashion. . . . I have many visitors, but it
confuses me so much to talk to them that at last I scarcely know
what I am saying and only long to be left in peace." The
condition of a man of naturally genial and optimistic temperament
can easily be imagined from all this--perhaps even more from the
fact of his having a card printed to hand to inquirers who
called, bearing the words:

Hin ist alle meine Kraft; Alt and schwach bin ich.

[Fled for ever is my strength; Old and weak am I.] Last Works

But while Haydn was thus suffering from the natural disabilities
of his years, he was not wholly divorced from his art. It is true
that nothing of any real importance came from his pen after "The
Seasons," but a good deal of work of various kinds was done, some
of which it is impossible for the biographer to ignore. One
rather novel undertaking carries us back to the end of 1799,
about which time he was first asked by George Thomson, the friend
of Burns, to write accompaniments for certain Scottish songs to
be published in Thomson's well-known national collections. The
correspondence which followed is interesting in many ways, and as
it is not noticed in any other biography of Haydn, we propose to
deal with it here.[Footnote: The letters passed through the
present writer's hands some five years ago, when he was preparing
his Life of George Thomson(1898). They are now in the British
Museum with the other Thomson correspondence.]

A Scottish Admirer

George Thomson engaged at one time or other the services of
Beethoven, Pleyel, Weber, Hummel, Bishop and Kozeluch. But Haydn
was his first love. A genius of the kind, he writes in 1811
"never before existed and probably never will be surpassed." He
is "the inimitable Haydn," the "delectable," the "father of us
all," and so on. On the other hand, Haydn was proud of what he
did for Thomson. "I boast of this work," he said, "and by it I
flatter myself my name will live in Scotland many years after my
death. Nay, if we may trust an authority cited by Thomson, so
highly did he think of "the symphonies and accompaniments which
he composed for my melodies as to have the original score of each
framed and hung all over the walls of his bedroom." Little wonder
that Thomson "loved the dear old man" and regretted that his
worldly circumstances did not allow him to erect a statue to the
composer at his own expense!

We have called this writing of symphonies and accompaniments for
George Thomson a novel undertaking. It was, however, only novel
in the sense of being rather out of Haydn's special "line." He
had already been employed on work of the kind for the collection
of William Napier, to which he contributed the accompaniments of
150 songs. Later on, too (in 1802-1803), he harmonized and wrote
accompaniments for sixty-five airs, for which he received 500
florins from Whyte of Edinburgh. The extent of his labours for
George Thomson we shall now proceed to show.

Song Accompaniments

Thomson addressed his first letter to Haydn in October 1799.
There is no copy of it, but there is a copy of a letter to Mr.
Straton, a friend of Thomson's, who was at this time Secretary to
the Legation at Vienna. Straton was to deliver the letter to
Haydn, and negotiate with him on Thomson's behalf. He was
authorized to "say whatever you conceive is likely to produce
compliance," and if necessary to "offer a few more ducats for
each air." The only stipulation was that Haydn "must not speak of
what he gets." Thomson does not expect that he will do the
accompaniments better than Kozeluch--"that is scarcely
possible"(!); but in the symphonies he will be "great and
original." Thomson, as we now learn from Straton, had offered 2
ducats for each air (say 20S.); Haydn "seemed desirous of having
rather more than 2 ducats, but did not precisely insist upon the
point." Apparently he did not insist, for the next intimation of
the correspondence is to the effect that thirty-two airs which he
had just finished had been forwarded to Thomson on June 19, 1800.
They would have been done sooner, says Straton, but "poor Haydn
laboured under so severe an illness during the course of this
spring that we were not altogether devoid of alarm in regard to
his recovery." Thomson, thus encouraged, sent sixteen more airs;
and Straton writes (April 30, 1801) that Haydn at first refused
to touch them because the price paid was too low. But in the
course of conversation Straton learnt that Haydn was writing to
Thomson to ask him to procure a dozen India handkerchiefs, and it
struck him that "your making him a present of them might mollify
the veteran into compliance respecting the sixteen airs." Straton
therefore took upon himself to promise in Thomson's name that the
handkerchiefs would be forthcoming, and "this had the desired
effect to such a degree that Haydn immediately put the sixteen
airs in his pocket, and is to compose the accompaniments as soon
as possible on the same terms as the former."

Mrs. Jordan

The handkerchiefs duly arrived--"nice and large"--and Haydn made
his acknowledgments in appropriate terms. At the same time (in
January 1802) he wrote: "I send you with this the favourite air
'The Blue Bells of Scotland,' and I should like that this little
air should be engraved all alone and dedicated in my name as a
little complimentary gift to the renowned Mrs. Jordan, whom,
without having the honour of knowing, I esteem extremely for her
great virtue and reputation." Mrs. Jordan has been credited with
the air of "The Blue Bells of Scotland." She certainly
popularized the song, whether it was her own or not. In the note
just quoted Haydn must have used the term "virtue" in the Italian
sense.

A Hitch

After this a little hitch occurred in the Thomson correspondence.
Haydn, being asked by Whyte, the publisher of a rival collection,
to do something for his work, at once agreed. Thomson, not
unnaturally, perhaps, felt hurt. He made his complaint through
Mr. Straton's successor at the Embassy, Mr. Charles Stuart; and
in August 1803 Stuart writes to say that he had broached the
matter to Haydn "in as delicate terms as possible for fear he
might take offence." Haydn frankly admitted that he had done the
accompaniments for Whyte, but said the airs were different from
those he had done for Thomson. After "a long conversation, he
informed me," says Mr. Stuart, "that being now seventy-four years
of age and extremely infirm, he found himself wholly incapable of
further application to study; that he must therefore beg leave to
decline all offers, whether on your part or from any other person
whatsoever. He even declared that notwithstanding the repeated
requests of Prince Esterhazy, he felt himself utterly incapable
of finishing several pieces of music he had undertaken, and being
possessed of a competency he desired nothing so much as to pass
the short time he has yet to live in repose and quiet." From this
letter we learn that Thomson had unluckily sent a present of a
handkerchief for Frau Haydn, who had now been dead for three
years!

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