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It is difficult to understand Haydn's conduct in this matter, for the perfidious treatment suspected by Beethoven is quite at variance with the ordinarily accepted character of the old man, and I cannot help fancying that the only foundation for Beethoven's suspicion was that Haydn did not quite understand the erratic genius of the youth till some time afterward.
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.
The novelty of Haydn's concerts of which he was to give twenty at fifty pounds apiece consisted of their being his own symphonies, conducted by himself in person. Haydn's name, during his serene, uneventful years with the Ester-hazys, had become world-famous. His reception was most brilliant.
Der Tod und das Mädchen is sad; so is Les Larmes in Werther.... But a very great deal of supermusic is neither grand nor sad. Haydn's symphonies are usually as light-hearted and as light-waisted as possible. Mozart's Figaro scarcely seems to have a care.
But while he was about it, there was no lack of completeness in Haydn's folly, and he felt the consequences of it all his days. The Leitha at Rohrau divides Hungary from Austria. Haydn's father, Mathias Haydn, said to have been a master-wheelwright, came from Hainburg, near to the Danube, and some little distance from Rohrau.
It is thus that the noble character always acts; we become insensibly elevated by him, and cannot help feeling as he does and acquiring the habit of looking at things in the same light. Such is the magical action and reaction of minds upon each other. Artists, also, feel themselves elevated by contact with artists greater than themselves. Thus Haydn's genius was first fired by Handel.
Let Prague keep him, ah! and well reward him, for without that the history of geniuses is bad; alas! we see so many noble minds crushed beneath adversity. Mozart is incomparable, and I am annoyed that he is unable to obtain any court appointment. Forgive me if I get excited when speaking of him, I am so fond of him." Mozart's admiration for Haydn's music, too, was very marked.
A smile of delight played on Haydn's lips and rendered his face again young and beautiful. "Now, sing with me, all three of you," he said. "Sing loudly and firmly, that God may hear us. I will commence again at the beginning, and you shall accompany me."
The work throughout is cast on a higher plane than any mass which had appeared since Bach's Mass in B minor. It was written for Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, whose grandfather was Haydn's patron, and was first sung in the chapel of the Prince at Eisenstadt, on the name-day of his wife, the Princess Marie. Hümmel was Kapellmeister there, but Beethoven conducted the performance on this occasion.
"The nightingale was right; my end is drawing nigh," he said, with a faint smile. "But I will not die before learning that the Austrians have defeated the enemy, and that my emperor has gained a battle." And in truth Joseph Haydn's strong will once more over-powered death, which had already touched him with its finger.
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