Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/574

of his services being required at Esterház. But when in 1790 Prince Nicholas died, and his successor dissolved the orchestra, allowing Haydn a considerable pension, the latter was at last at liberty to accept a munificent offer from Salomon, the violinist and entrepreneur, in whose company he started for London, where Salomon occupied a leading position in the musical world. They left Vienna in December 1790, and travelled by way of Bonn, where Salomon had been born. There, accordingly, a halt was made, and Haydn was received by the elector with every honour due to his fame. The amusing description of a dinner given during his stay at Bonn maybe read in Thayer’s biography of Beethoven, who at that time was a member of the electoral chapel, and not unlikely made on this occasion Haydn’s acquaintance. On the latter’s return journey the young man submitted a cantata to the celebrated composer, whom he soon afterwards followed to Vienna to become his pupil. It is well known that the relations between the great master and his greater pupil were not altogether what might have been desired. Beethoven’s genius was of too individual a type to bear the impress of a nature so different as Haydn’s, and the latter may not always have taken sufficient trouble to enter into the ways of his wilful pupil. Certain it is that, at one time of his career, Beethoven delighted in speaking slightingly of “Papa Haydn,” and, for instance, refused to call himself Haydn’s pupil, because, as he bluntly said, he never learnt anything under his tuition. He even went so far as to suspect Haydn of wilfully trying to keep him back in his studies. It was only in his later years that this animosity gave way to the more genial appreciation of his great predecessor, an expression of which is quoted at the beginning of this notice.

Haydn’s visit to London was a succession of triumphs. Dr Burney welcomed him with a laudatory poem; the various musical societies of the metropolis vied for his presence; and on July 8, 1791, he was created doctor of music by the university of Oxford. At court also he was received with every distinction, and the aristocracy followed the royal example. Neither were more substantial rewards wanting. Haydn’s engagement with Salomon was to write and conduct at the concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms six symphonies, and the success of these may be judged from the fact that at Haydn’s benefit concert, for which £200 had been guaranteed to him, the receipts rose to £350. He also appeared at other concerts (one given by himself at Hanover Square Rooms, where amongst other works the Seven Words already referred to was performed), always with equal success. The same events were repeated in the following year, when the Salomon concerts began in February, and concluded with an extra concert in June. The symphonies known as the “Salomon Set,” comprising some of Haydn’s finest instrumental works, are the permanent record of the connexion of the two artists. In 1792 Haydn also went to hear the charity children at St Paul’s, whose singing produced on him as deep an impression as it did on Berlioz many years later. “I was more touched by this innocent and reverent music,” he wrote in his diary, “than by any I ever heard in my life.” Haydn left London in June 1792, but only to return in January 1794. In addition to his earlier works six new symphonies were played at the concerts of Salomon, which in the following year were given at the King’s Concert-room and terminated on June 1, 1795, when Haydn appeared for the last time in England. In addition to valuable presents from royalty and other persons, he realized £1200 by his second English visit, from which he returned to Vienna in the autumn of 1795, to resume once more his functions in the newly organized chapel of Prince Esterhazy. He was now well stricken in years, and might have rested on his laurels. But so far from this being the case, the two works on which—apart from his symphonies and sonatas—his immortality must mainly rest, belong to this last epoch of his life. These were the oratorio The Creation, and the cantata The Seasons. They were both written to German translations of English libretti, the former being compiled from Paradise Lost, the latter from Thomson’s Seasons. The Creation was first performed in public on March 19, 1799, when its success was as immediate as it has since proved permanent. The Seasons was begun soon after the completion of The Creation, and finished in very little time. No one, delighted by the charm and spontaneity of its melodies, would suspect it to be the work of a feeble old man. Such, however, Haydn had now become. He wrote little after The Seasons, and his public appearances were few and far between. His old age was surrounded by the love of his friends and the esteem of the musical world, but his failing health did not admit of much active enjoyment. He was seen in public for the last time at a performance of The Creation in 1808. But his own music made so overpowering an impression on him that he had to be carried out of the hall. He died on May 31, 1809, during the occupation of Vienna by Napoleon’s army, and many French officers followed his body to the grave.

Haydn’s compositions comprize almost every form of vocal and instrumental music. Of his dramatic works the operas are of infinitely less importance than The Creation and The Seasons. In the former there are points of grand and truly epical conception, surpassed by few masters except Handel, and the idyllic charm of the latter is as fresh to-day as it was eighty years ago. At the same time the great importance of Haydn in the history of music lies elsewhere. It was as an instrumental composer that he opened a new epoch of musical development. That amongst his 125 orchestral symphonies there are many extremely slight efforts is a matter of course. Even his finest symphonies, such as the celebrated Surprise, or the one in E flat surnamed in Germany “mit dem Paukenwirbel,” on account of the characteristic drum-roll occurring in it, are pigmies if compared with Beethoven’s colossal efforts. At the same time it is true that without Haydn’s modest substruction Beethoven’s mighty edifice would have been impossible. It was Haydn who first fixed the form of the symphony and gave it consistency of development. The lucid and harmonious treatment of his themes and the symmetrical structure of his symphonic movements remain still unsurpassed. And the same may be said in almost the same words of his string quartets, of which he wrote no less than eighty-three. It is by such works as these that Haydn has earned the name of father of instrumental music, generally and justly applied to him. At the same time it cannot be denied that there is in his works a certain want of intensity and depth. He avoids the high places of thought and passion; his path lies mostly in the smiling plains of humour and agreeable sentiment. In the former especially he excels, and it ought to be noted that his humour is of that peculiarly Viennese type which is as harmless as it is charming, and to the genial influence of which even such serious composers as Beethoven and Brahms have had to submit. Some of Haydn’s minuets especially seem to spring immediately from the consciousness of the people. How much he was at one with his nation is further proved by such a song as his “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” which has become the Austrian national hymn, and is one of the rare instances in which a genuine volkslied can be traced to a celebrated composer,—for generally the songs of the people are produced by the people. To sum up, Haydn’s place in the history of his art will remain unassailed by all the changes musical taste has undergone since his time, or may still undergo. His melodies, though simple, are genuinely inspired, and will never lose their