Part 10 (1/2)
The chief beauty of Haydn's work lies in its airs for the solo voices
While never giving consummate expression to real and deep e in sincerity, and the ood as those of the best Italian writing for the stage With all our advance it is impossible to resist the freshness of ”With verdure clad,” and the tender charlides on, thro' silent vales, the limpid brook” On the whole, however, it is difficult to sum up a work like ”The Creation,” unless, as has been cynically reo to hear it It is not sublime, but neither is it dull In another fifty years, perhaps, the critic will be able to say that its ely historic and literary
[See J F Runcis, where an admirably just and concise appreciation of Haydn and ”The Creation” may be read]
A New Work
After such an unexpected success as that of ”The Creation,” it was only in the nature of things that Haydn's friends should persuade him to undertake the composition of a second work of the kind Van Swieten was insistent, and the outcoenerally classed as an oratorio, but it oughtessentially secular as regards its text, though the form and style are practically the saain due to Swieten, who, of course, adapted the text from James Thomson's well-known poem
”The Seasons”
It would certainly have been a pity to lose such a fresh, melodious little work as ”The Seasons”; but it is only too apparent that while there was no appreciable failure of Haydn's creative force, his physical strength was not equal to the strain involved by a coth In 1806, when Dies found him rather weaker than usual, he dolorously reo it was different, but 'The Seasons' brought on this weakness I ought never to have undertaken that work It gavestroke”
He appears to have started on the ith great reluctance and with considerable distrust of his oers, but once fairly co of his old ani so manfully with his librettist over certain points in the text that a serious rupture between the tas at one tienial to Haydn, who, as the years advanced, was more and more inclined towards devotional themes That at least seems to be the inference to be drawn fro asked which of his two oratorios he himself preferred ”'The Creation,'” answered Haydn ”In 'The Creation'
angels speak and their talk is of God; in 'The Seasons' no one higher speaks than Farmer Simon”
”The Seasons” criticized
But whether he liked the theenial and melodious as if it had been the work of his prime
If anyone sees in it an evidence of weakness, he is seeing only what he had expected to see As Mr Rockstro rerand old man complained is to be found in any part of it It is a model of descriptive, contehtful beauty and illustrative power True to Nature in its minutest details, it yet never insults her by trivial atteestion of the hidden truth was, possible The ”delicious softness” of the opening chorus, and the perfection of rustic happiness portrayed in the song which describes the joy of the ”impatient husbandman” are alone sufficient to prove that, whatever he enius was not appreciably waning
The first perfor Palace on the 24th of April 1801 It was repeated tithin a week; and on the 29th of May the corand public performance at the Redoutensaal The work proved almost as successful as ”The Creation” Haydn was enraptured with it, but he was never really hi stroke
CHAPTER VIII LAST YEARS
Failing Strength--Last Works--A Scottish Ade Thomson--Mrs Jordan--A Hitch--A ”Previous” Letter of Condolence--Eventide--Last Public Appearance--The End--Funeral Honours--Desecration of Reth
Little is left to be told of the years which followed the production of ”The Seasons” Haydn never really recovered froenius had entailed From his letters and the reminiscences of his friends we can read only too plainly the story of his growing infirmity Even in 1799 he spoke of the diminution of his mental powers, and exclaimed: ”Oh, God! how much yet remains to be done in this splendid art, even by a radually decaying veteran,” enjoying only the feeble health which is ”the inseparable coray-haired man of seventy” In Dece the ”Seven Words” for the hospital fund at the Redoutensaal, and shortly afterwards wrote sadly of his ”very great weakness” In 1804 he was asked to direct a perfor strength Gradually he withdrew hiuor broken only by the visits of friends and by ler, Pleyel, the Weber family, Hummel, Reichardt, and many others caave hi, to beg his blessing on the occasion of his first public concert in April 1805, for which he had composed a cantata in honour of Haydn's seventy-third birthday But the hothen the weak hands or confir eye has become dull and heavy and his complexion sallohile he suffers froetfulness and other pains” His old gaiety has coone, and even his friends have beco days,” he said to Dies, ”must all be spent in this lonely fashi+on I have many visitors, but it confuses me so much to talk to the to be left in peace” The condition of a enial and optiined fro a card printed to hand to inquirers who called, bearing the words:
Hin ist alle meine Kraft; Alt and schwach bin ich
[Fled for ever is th; Old and weak am I]
Last Works
But while Haydn was thus suffering from the natural disabilities of his years, he was not wholly divorced fro of any real iood deal of work of various kinds was done, sonore One rather novel undertaking carries us back to the end of 1799, about which tie Thomson, the friend of Burns, to write accos to be published in Thomson's well-known national collections The correspondence which followed is interesting in raphy of Haydn, we propose to deal with it here [The letters passed through the present writer's hands soe Thomson(1898) They are now in the British Museum with the other Thoe Thoed at one time or other the services of Beethoven, Pleyel, Weber, Huenius of the kind, he writes in 1811 ”never before existed and probably never will be surpassed” He is ”the inimitable Haydn,” the ”delectable,” the ”father of us all,” and so on On the other hand, Haydn was proud of what he did for Thomson ”I boast of this work,” he said, ”and by it I flatter myself my name will live in Scotland many years after my death” Nay, if we hly did he think of ”the symphonies and accompaniinal score of each fra all over the walls of his bedroom” Little wonder that Thoretted that his worldly circumstances did not allow him to erect a statue to the co of sye Tho It was, however, only novel in the sense of being rather out of Haydn's special ”line” He had already been employed on work of the kind for the collection of William Napier, to which he contributed the accos Later on, too (in 1802-1803), he harmonized and wrote accompaniments for sixty-five airs, for which he received 500 florins froe Tho Accompaniments
Thomson addressed his first letter to Haydn in October 1799 There is no copy of it, but there is a copy of a letter to Mr Straton, a friend of Thoation at Vienna
Straton was to deliver the letter to Haydn, and negotiate with him on Thomson's behalf He was authorized to ”say whatever you conceive is likely to produce compliance,” and if necessary to ”offer a few more ducats for each air” The only stipulation was that Haydn ”ets” Thomson does not expect that he will do the accompaniments better than Kozeluch--”that is scarcely possible”(!); but in the syinal” Thomson, aslearn from Straton, had offered 2 ducats for each air (say 20s); Haydn ”see rather more than 2 ducats, but did not precisely insist upon the point” Apparently he did not insist, for the next intimation of the correspondence is to the effect that thirty-two airs which he had just finished had been forwarded to Thomson on June 19, 1800 They would have been done sooner, says Straton, but ”poor Haydn laboured under so severe an illness during the course of this spring that ere not altogether devoid of alared, sent sixteen more airs; and Straton writes (April 30, 1801) that Haydn at first refused to touch them because the price paid was too low But in the course of conversation Straton learnt that Haydn riting to Thomson to ask him to procure a dozen India handkerchiefs, and it struck hihtthe sixteen airs” Straton therefore took upon himself to promise in Tho, and ”this had the desired effect to such a degree that Haydn immediately put the sixteen airs in his pocket, and is to compose the accompaniments as soon as possible on the same terms as the former”
Mrs Jordan