Part 2 (2/2)
An Aristocratic Appointment
An event of this kind must have done something for Haydn's reputation, which was now rapidly extending. Porpora seems also to have been of no small service to him in the way of introducing him to aristocratic acquaintances. At any rate, in 1755, a wealthy musical amateur, the Baron von Furnberg, who frequently gave concerts at his country house at Weinzierl, near Vienna, invited him to take the direction of these performances and compose for their programmes. It was for this n.o.bleman that he wrote his first string quartet, the one in B flat beginning--
[figure: a musical score excerpt]
This composition was rapidly followed by seventeen other works of the same cla.s.s, all written between 1755 and 1756.
Taken for an Impostor
Haydn's connection with Furnberg and the success of his compositions for that n.o.bleman at once gave him a distinction among the musicians and dilettanti of Vienna. He now felt justified in increasing his fees, and charged from 2 to 5 florins for a month's lessons. Remembering the legend of his unboylike fastidiousness, and the undoubted nattiness of his later years, it is curious to come upon an incident of directly opposite tendency. A certain Countess von Thun, whose name is a.s.sociated with Beethoven, Mozart and Gluck, met with one of his clavier sonatas in ma.n.u.script, and expressed a desire to see him. When Haydn presented himself, the countess was so struck by his shabby appearance and uncouth manners that it occurred to her he must be an impostor! But Haydn soon removed her doubts by the pathetic and realistic account which he gave of his lowly origin and his struggles with poverty, and the countess ended by becoming his pupil and one of his warmest friends.
A Count's Capellmeister
Haydn is said to have held for a time the post of organist to the Count Haugwitz; but his first authenticated fixed engagement dates from 1759, when, through the influence of Baron Furnberg, he was appointed Capellmeister to the Bohemian Count Morzin. This n.o.bleman, whose country house was at Lukavec, near Pilsen, was a great lover of music, and maintained a small, well-chosen orchestra of some sixteen or eighteen performers. It was for him that Haydn wrote his first Symphony in D--
[Figure: a musical score excerpt]
Falls in Love
We now approach an interesting event in Haydn's career. In the course of some banter at the house of Rogers, Campbell the poet once remarked that marriage in nine cases out of ten looks like madness. Haydn's case was not the tenth. His salary from Count Morzin was only 20 pounds with board and lodging; he was not making anything substantial by his compositions; and his teaching could not have brought him a large return. Yet, with the proverbial rashness of his cla.s.s, he must needs take a wife, and that, too, in spite, of the fact that Count Morzin never kept a married man in his service! ”To my mind,” said Mozart, ”a bachelor lives only half a life.” It is true enough; but Mozart had little reason to bless the ”better half,” while Haydn had less. The lady with whom he originally proposed to brave the future was one of his own pupils--the younger of the two daughters of Barber Keller, to whom he had been introduced when he was a chorister at St Stephen's. According to Dies, Haydn had lodged with the Kellers at one time. The statement is doubtful, but in any case his good stars were not in the ascendant when it was ordained that he should marry into this family.
Marries
It was, as we have said, with the younger of the two daughters that he fell in love. Unfortunately, for some unexplained reason, she took the veil, and said good-bye to a wicked world. Like the hero in ”Locksley Hall,” Haydn may have asked himself, ”What is that which I should do?”
But Keller soon solved the problem for him. ”Barbers are not the most diffident people of the world,” as one of the race remarks in ”Gil Blas,” and Keller was a.s.suredly not diffident. ”Never mind,” he said to Haydn, ”you shall have the other.” Haydn very likely did not want the other, but, recognizing with Dr Holmes's fas.h.i.+onable lady that ”getting married is like jumping overboard anyway you look at it,” he resolved to risk it and take Anna Maria Keller for better or worse.
His Wife
The marriage was solemnized at St Stephen's on November 26, 1760, when the bridegroom was twenty-nine and the bride thirty-two. There does not seem to have been much affection on either side to start with; but Haydn declared that he had really begun to ”like” his wife, and would have come to entertain a stronger feeling for her if she had behaved in a reasonable way. It was, however, not in Anna Maria's nature to behave in a reasonable way. The diverting Marville says that the majority of women married to men of genius are so vain of the abilities of their husbands that they are frequently insufferable. Frau Haydn was not a woman of that kind. As Haydn himself sadly remarked, it did not matter to her whether he were a cobbler or an artist. She used his ma.n.u.script scores for curling papers and underlays for the pastry, and wrote to him when he was in England for money to buy a ”widow's home.” He was even driven to pitifully undignified expedients to protect his hard-earned cash from her extravagant hands.
There are not many details of Anna Maria's behaviour, for Haydn was discreetly reticent about his domestic affairs; and only two references can be found in all his published correspondence to the woman who had rendered his life miserable. But these anecdotes tell us enough. For a long time he tried making the best of it; but making the best of it is a poor affair when it comes to a man and woman living together, and the day arrived when the composer realized that to live entirely apart was the only way of ending a union that had proved anything but a foretaste of heaven. Frau Haydn looked to spend her last years in a ”widow's home”
provided for her by the generosity of her husband, but she predeceased him by nine years, dying at Baden, near Vienna, on the 20th of March 1800. With this simple statement of facts we may finally dismiss a matter that is best left to silence--to where ”beyond these voices there is peace.”
Whether Count Morzin would have retained the services of Haydn in spite of his marriage is uncertain. The question was not put to the test, for the count fell into financial embarra.s.sments and had to discharge his musical establishment. A short time before this, Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy had heard some of Haydn's compositions when on a visit to Morzin, and, being favourably impressed thereby, he resolved to engage Haydn should an opportunity ever present itself. The opportunity had come, and Haydn entered the service of a family who were practically his life-long patrons, and with whom his name must always be intimately a.s.sociated.
CHAPTER III. EISENSTADT--1761-1766
The Esterhazy Family--Haydn's Agreement--An ”Upper Servant”?--Dependence in the Order of Nature--Material and Artistic Advantages of the Esterhazy Appointment--Some Disadvantages--Capellmeister Werner--A Posthumous Tribute--Esterhazy ”The Magnificent”--Compositions for Baryton--A Reproval--Operettas and other Occasional Works--First Symphonies.
The Esterhazy Family
As Haydn served the Esterhazys uninterruptedly for the long period of thirty years, a word or two about this distinguished family will not be out of place. At the present time the Esterhazy estates include twenty-nine lords.h.i.+ps, with twenty-one castles, sixty market towns, and 414 villages in Hungary, besides lords.h.i.+ps in Lower Austria and a county in Bavaria. This alone will give some idea of the power and importance of the house to which Haydn was attached. The family was divided into three main branches, but it is with the Frakno or Forchtenstein line that we are more immediately concerned. Count Paul Esterhazy of Frakno (1635-1713) served in the Austrian army with such distinction as to gain a field-marshal's baton at the age of thirty. He was the first prince of the name, having been enn.o.bled in 1687 for his successes against the Turks and his support of the House of Hapsburg. He was a musical amateur and a performer of some ability, and it was to him that the family owed the existence of the Esterhazy private chapel, with its solo singers, its chorus, and its orchestra. Indeed, it was this prince who, in 1683, built the splendid Palace of Eisenstadt, at the foot of the Leitha mountains, in Hungary, where Haydn was to spend so many and such momentous years.
When Prince Paul died in 1713, he was succeeded by his son, Joseph Anton, who acquired ”enormous wealth,” and raised the Esterhazy family to ”the height of its glory.” This n.o.bleman's son, Paul Anton, was the reigning prince when Haydn was called to Eisenstadt in 1761. He was a man of fifty, and had already a brilliant career behind him. Twice in the course of the Seven Years' War he had ”equipped and maintained during a whole campaign a complete regiment of hussars for the service of his royal mistress,” and, like his distinguished ancestor, he had been elevated to the dignity of field-marshal. He was pa.s.sionately devoted to the fine arts, more particularly to music, and played the violin with eminent skill. Under his reign the musical establishment at Eisenstadt enjoyed a prosperity unknown at any other period of its history.
Haydn's Agreement
As there will be something to say about the terms and nature of Haydn's engagement with Prince Paul Anton, it may be well to quote the text of the agreement which he was required to sign. It was in these terms:
FORM OF AGREEMENT AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE VICE-CAPELLMEISTER
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