servants, 'Children, don't be frightened; no harm can happen to you while Haydn is by.' The last visit he received on his death-bed (the city being then in the occupation of the French) was from a French officer, who sang 'In native worth' with a depth of expression doubtless inspired by the occasion. Haydn was much moved, and embraced him warmly at parting. On May 26, 1809, he called his servants round him for the last time, and having been carried to the piano solemnly played the Emperor's Hymn three times over. Five days afterwards, at one o'clock in the morning of the gist, he expired.
On June 15 Mozart's Requiem was performed in his honour at the Schottenkirche. Amongst the mourners were many French officers of high rank; and the guard of honour round the catafalque was composed of French soldiers, and a detachment of the Bürgerwehr. He was buried in the Hundsthurm churchyard, outside the lines, close to the suburb in which he lived, but his remains were exhumed by command of Prince Esterhazy, and solemnly re-interred in the upper parish church at Eisenstadt on Nov. 7, 1820. A simple stone with a Latin inscription is inserted in the wall over the vault to inform the passer-by that a great man rests below.
It is a well-known fact that when the coffin was opened for identification before the removal, the skull was missing: it had been stolen two days after the funeral. The one which was afterwards sent to the Prince anonymously as Haydn's, was buried with the other remains; but the real one was retained and is at present in the possession of the family of a celebrated physician. [App. p.670 "the composer's skull has lately come into the possession of the Austrian Museum at Vienna."] The grave at Vienna remained absolutely undistinguished for 5 years after Haydn's death, till 1814, when his pupil Neukomm erected a stone bearing the following inscription, which contains a 5-part Canon for solution.
HAYDN
NATUS MDCCXXXII
OBIIT MDCCCIX
CAN. AENIGM. QUINQUE . VOC.
D. D. D.
Discip. Eius Neukom Vindob. Redux.
MDCCCXIV.
This stone was renewed by Graf von Stockhammer in 1842.
As soon as Haydn's death was known, funeral services were held in all the principal cities of Europe. In Paris was performed a sacred cantata for three voices[1] and orchestra (Breitkopf & Härtel) composed by Cherubini on a false report of his death in 1805. It was also given elsewhere.
During his latter years Haydn was made an honorary member of many institutions—the Academy of Arts and Sciences, Stockholm (1798); the Philharmonic Society at Laybach (1800); the Academy of Arts, Amsterdam (1801); the Institut (1802), the 'Conservatoire de Musique' (1805), and the 'Société académique des enfans d'Apollon' of Paris (1807). He also received gold medals from the musicians who performed the Creation at the opera in Paris, Dec. 24, 1800, and from the Institut (1802); the 'Zwölffache Bürgermedaille,' Vienna (1803); from the professors of the 'Concert des Amateurs' (1803), the Conservatoire (1805), the 'Enfans d'Apollon' (1807), all of Paris; and the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg (1808). He was also nominated honorary citizen of Vienna (1804).
Poems without end were written in his praise; and equally numerous were the portraits, in chalk or oils, engraved, and modelled in wax. Of the many busts the best is that by his friend Grassy. The silhouette here engraved for the first time hung for long at the head of Haydn's bed, and was authenticated by Elssler as strikingly like.
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Among his pupils we may mention—Robert Kimmerling and Abund Mykisch, both priests, who learnt from him as early as 1753; Countess Thun; the Erdödy family; Ignaz Pleyel; Niemecz, a monk; Krumpholz, Ant. Kraft, and Rosetti, members of the Esterhazy Chapel; Distler, violinist; Fernandi, organist; Démar, composer; Hoffmann of Livonia; Kranz of Stuttgart; Franz Tomisch; Ed. von Weber; Ant. Wranitzky; Haigh, Graeff, and Callcott, of London; Nisle; Franz de Paula Roser; the Polzellis; J. G. Fuchs, afterwards vice-Capellmeister of the chapel, and Haydn's successor; Struck; Bartsch; Lessel; Neukomm; Hänsel; Seyfried, and Destouches. Haydn used to call Pleyel, Neukomm, and Lessel his favourite and most grateful pupils. Most of
- ↑ No. 133 in Cherubini's own Catalouge
