Part 9 (1/2)
Esterhaz once more
There is little to say about Haydn's labours as Capellmeister of the Esterhazy household at this time. Apparently he was only at Eisenstadt for the summer and autumn. Down to 1802, however, he always had a ma.s.s ready for Princess Esterhazy's name-day in September. These compositions are Nos. 2, 1, 3, 16, 4 and 6 of the Novello edition. No. 2, Pohl tells us, was composed in 1796, and called the ”Paukenmesse,” from the fact of the drums being used in the Agnus. No. 3 was written in 1797. It is known in England as the Imperial Ma.s.s, but in Germany as ”Die Nelsonmesse,” on account of its having been performed during Nelson's visit to Eisenstadt in 1800. On that occasion Nelson asked Haydn for his pen, and gave him his own gold watch in exchange.
The Austrian Hymn
It was shortly after his return to Vienna--in January 1797, to be precise--that he composed his favourite air, ”G.o.d preserve the Emperor,”
better known as the Austrian Hymn. The story of this celebrated composition is worth telling with some minuteness. Its inception was due to Count von Saurau, Imperial High Chancellor and Minister of the Interior. Writing in 1820, the count said:
I often regretted that we had not, like the English, a national air calculated to display to all the world the loyal devotion of our people to the kind and upright ruler of our Fatherland, and to awaken within the hearts of all good Austrians that n.o.ble national pride so indispensable to the energetic fulfillment of all the beneficial measures of the sovereign. This seemed to me more urgent at a period when the French Revolution was raging most furiously, and when the Jacobins cherished the idle hope of finding among the worthy Viennese partisans and partic.i.p.ators in their criminal designs. [The scandalous Jacobin persecutions and executions in Austria and Hungary took place in 1796]. I caused that meritorious poet Haschka to write the words, and applied to our immortal countryman Haydn to set them to music, for I considered him alone capable of writing anything approaching in merit to the English ”G.o.d save the King.” Such was the origin of our national hymn.
It would not have been difficult to match ”G.o.d save the King,” the mediocrity of which, especially as regards the words, has been the b.u.t.t of countless satirists. Beethoven wrote in his diary that he ”must show the English what a blessing they have” in that ”national disgrace.” If Haydn regarded it as a ”blessing,” he certainly did not take it as a model. He produced an air which, looking at it from a purely artistic point of view, is the best thing of the national anthem kind that has ever been written. The Emperor was enchanted with it when sung on his birthday, February 12, 1797, at the National Theatre in Vienna, and through Count Saurau sent the composer a gold box adorned with a facsimile of the royal features. ”Such a surprise and such a mark of favour, especially as regards the portrait of my beloved monarch,” wrote Haydn, ”I never before received in acknowledgment of my poor talents.”
Haydn's Love for It
We have several indications of Haydn's predilection for this fine air, which has long been popular as a hymn tune in all the churches. He wrote a set of variations for it as the Andante of his ”Kaiser Quartet.”
Griesinger tells us, too, that as often as the warm weather and his strength permitted, during the last few years of his life, he used to be led into his back room that he might play it on the piano. It is further related by Dies that, during the bombardment of Vienna in May 1809, Haydn seated himself at his instrument every forenoon to give forth the sound of the favourite song. Indeed, on May 26, only five days before his death, he played it over three times in succession, and ”with a degree of expression that astonished himself.” As one writer puts it, the air ”seemed to have acquired a certain sacredness in his eyes in an age when kings were beheaded and their crowns tossed to the rabble.”
Haydn's first sketch of the melody was found among his papers after his death. We reproduce it here, with an improvement shown in small notes.
There are, it will be observed, some slight differences between the draft and the published version of the air:
[figure: a musical score excerpt from the draft]
[figure: a musical score excerpt from the published version]
The collecting of what Tennyson called ”the chips of the workshop”
is not as a rule an edifying business, but the evolution of a great national air must always be interesting.
Plagiarism or Coincidence?
It might perhaps be added that Dr Kuhac, the highest authority on Croatian folk-song, a.s.serted in an article contributed to the Croatian Review (1893) that the Austrian National Hymn was based on a Croatian popular air. In reviewing Kuhac's collection of Croatian melodies, a work in four volumes, containing 1600 examples, Dr Reimann signifies his agreement with Kuhac, and adds that Haydn employed Croatian themes not only in ”G.o.d preserve the Emperor,” but in many pa.s.sages of his other works. These statements must not be taken too seriously. Handel purloined wholesale from brother composers and said nothing about it.
The artistic morality of Haydn's age was different, and, knowing his character as we do, we may be perfectly sure that if he had of set purpose introduced into any of his compositions music which was not his own he would, in some way or other, have acknowledged the debt. This hunting for plagiarisms which are not plagiarisms at all but mere coincidences--coincidences which are and must be inevitable--is fast becoming a nuisance, and it is the duty of every serious writer to discredit the practice. The composer of ”The Creation” had no need to borrow his melodies from any source.
CHAPTER VII. ”THE CREATION” AND ”THE SEASONS”
Haydn's Crowning Achievement--”The Creation” suggested--The ”Unintelligible Jargon” of the Libretto--The Stimulating Effect of London--Haydn's Self-Criticism--First Performance of ”The Creation”--London Performances--French Enthusiasm--The Oratorio criticized--”The Seasons.”
Haydn's Crowning Achievement
Haydn rounded his life with ”The Creation” and ”The Seasons.” They were the summit of his achievement, as little to be expected from him, considering his years, as ”Falstaff” was to be expected from the octogenarian Verdi. Some geniuses flower late. It was only now, by his London symphonies and his ”Creation,” that Haydn's genius blossomed so luxuriantly as to place him with almost amazing suddenness among the very first of composers. There is hardly anything more certain than this, that if he had not come to London he would not have stood where he stands to-day. The best of his symphonies were written for London; and it was London, in effect, that set him to work in what was for him practically a new direction, leading to the production of an oratorio which at once took its place by the side of Handel's master-pieces, and rose to a popularity second only to that of ”The Messiah” itself.
”The Creation” suggested
The connection thus established between the names of Handel and Haydn is interesting, for there can be little question that Haydn was led to think of writing a large choral work chiefly as the result of frequently hearing Handel's oratorios during his visits to the metropolis. The credit of suggesting ”The Creation” to Haydn is indeed a.s.signed to Salomon, but it is more than probable that the matter had already been occupying his thoughts. It has been explicitly stated [See note by C.H.
Purday in Leisure Hour for 1880, p. 528.] that, being greatly impressed with the effect produced by ”The Messiah,” Haydn intimated to his friend Barthelemon his desire to compose a work of the same kind. He asked Barthelemon what subject he would advise for such a purpose, and Barthelemon, pointing to a copy of the Bible, replied: ”There! take that, and begin at the beginning.” This story is told on apparently good authority. But it hardly fits in with the statements of biographers.
According to the biographers, Salomon handed the composer a libretto originally selected for Handel from Genesis and Paradise Lost by Mr Lidley or Liddell. That this was the libretto used by Haydn is certain, and we may therefore accept it as a fact that Haydn's most notable achievement in choral music was due in great measure to the man who had brought him to London, and had drawn from him the finest of his instrumental works.
”The Creation” Libretto
Before proceeding further we may deal finally with the libretto of ”The Creation.” The ”unintelligible jargon” which disfigures Haydn's immortal work has often formed the subject of comment; and a.s.suredly nothing that can be said of it can well be too severe. ”The Creation” libretto stands to the present day as an example of all that is jejune and incongruous in words for music. The theme has in itself so many elements of inspiration that it is a matter for wonder how, for more than a century, English-speaking audiences have listened to the arrant nonsense with which Haydn's music is a.s.sociated. As has been well observed, ”the suburban love-making of our first parents, and the lengthy references to the habits of the worm and the leviathan are almost more than modern flesh and blood can endure.” Many years ago a leading musical critic wrote that there ought to be enough value, monetarily speaking, in ”The Creation” to make it worth while preparing a fresh libretto; for, said he, ”the present one seems only fit for the nursery, to use in connection with Noah's ark.” At the Norwich Festival performance of the oratorio in 1872, the words were, in fact, altered, but in all the published editions of the work the text remains as it was. It is usual to credit the composer's friend, Baron van Swieten, with the ”unintelligible jargon.” The baron certainly had a considerable hand in the adaptation of the text. But in reality it owes its very uncouth verbiage largely to the circ.u.mstance that it was first translated from English into German, and then re-translated back into English; the words, with the exception of the first chorus, being adapted to the music. Considering the ways of translators, the best libretto in the world could not but have suffered under such transformations, and it is doing a real injustice to the memory of Baron Swieten, the good friend of more than one composer, to hold him up needlessly to ridicule. [In one of George Thomson's letters to Mrs Hunter we read: ”It 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.”]