Haydn by J. Cuthbert Hadden (books to read this summer .TXT) 📕

Ideas of London

His ideas about London were mixed and hesitating. He was chiefly impressed by the size of the city, a fact which the Londoner of to-day can only fully appreciate when he remembers that in Haydn's time Regent Street had not been built and Lisson Grove was a country lane. Mendelssohn described the metropolis as "that smoky nest which is fated to be now and ever my favourite residence." But Haydn's regard was less for the place itself than for the people and the music. The fogs brought him an uncommonly severe attack of rheumatism, which he naively describes as "English," and obliged him to wrap up in flannel from head to foot. The street noises proved a great distraction--almost as much as they proved to Wagner in 1839, when the composer of "Lohengrin" had to contend with an organ-grinder at each end of the street! He exclaimed in particular against "the cries of the common people selling their wares." It was very distracting, no doubt, for, as a cynic has said, one cannot compose operas or write books or paint pictures in the midst of a row. Haydn desired above all things quiet for his work, and so by-and-by, as a solace for the evils which afflicted his ear, he removed himself from Great Pulteney Street to Lisson Grove--"in the country amid lovely scenery, where I live as if I were in a monastery."

Haydn at Court

For the present the dining and the entertaining went on. The 12th of January found him at the "Crown and Anchor" in the Strand, where the Anacreonatic Society expressed their respect and admiration in the usual fashion. The 18th of the same month was the Queen's birthday, and Haydn was invited to a Court ball in the evening. This was quite an exceptional distinction, for he had not yet been "presented" at Court. Probably he owed it to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. The Prince was a musical amateur, like his father and his grandfather, whose enthusiasm for Handel it is hardly necessary to recall. He played the 'cello--"not badly for a Prince," to parody Boccherini's answer to his royal master--and liked to take his part in glees and catches. Haydn was charmed by his affability. "He is the handsomest man on God's earth," wrote the composer. "He has an extraordinary love for music, and a great deal of feeling, but very little money." These courtesies to Haydn may perhaps be allowed to balance the apparent incivility shown to Beethoven and Weber, who sent compositions to the same royal amateur that were never so much as acknowledged.

But even the attentions of princes may become irksome and unprofitable. Haydn soon found that his health and his work were suffering from the flood of social engagements which London poured upon him. The dinner hour at this time was six o'clock. He complained that the hour was too late, and made a resolve to dine at home at four. He wanted his mornings for composition, and if visitors must see him they would have to wait till afternoon. Obviously he was beginning to tire of "the trivial round."

Unreasoning Rivalries

The Salomon concerts should have begun in January, but London, as it happened, was suffering from one of those unreasoning rivalries which made a part of Handel's career so miserable, and helped to immortalize the names of Gluck and Piccini. It is hardly worth reviving the details of such ephemeral contests now. In the present case the factionists were to some extent swayed by financial interests; to a still greater extent by professional jealousies. The trouble seems to have arisen originally in connection with Gallini's preparations for the opening of a new Opera House in the Haymarket. Salomon had engaged Cappelletti and David as his principal vocalists; but these, it appeared, were under contract not to sing in public before the opening of the Opera House. One faction did not want to have the Opera House opened at all. They were interested in the old Pantheon, and contended that a second Italian Opera House was altogether unnecessary.

Temporarily eclipsed

Salomon's first concert, already postponed to February 25, had been fixed for the 11th of March, on which date David, by special permission, was to appear "whether the Opera house was open or not." The delay was extremely awkward for both Haydn and Salomon, particularly for Haydn. He had been brought to London with beat of drum, and here he was compelled to hide his light while the directors of the professional concerts shot ahead of him and gained the ear of the public before he could assert his superiority. By this time also the element of professional jealousy had come into free play. Depreciatory paragraphs appeared in the public prints "sneering at the composer as 'a nine days' wonder,' whom closer acquaintance would prove to be inferior to either Cramer or Clementi; and alluding to the 'proverbial avarice' of the Germans as tempting so many artists, who met with scanty recognition from their own countrymen to herald their arrival in England with such a flourish of trumpets as should charm the money out of the pockets of easily-gulled John Bull." These pleasantries were continued on rather different lines, when at length Haydn was in a position to justify the claims made for him.

Band and Baton

Haydn, meanwhile, had been rehearsing the symphony for his opening concert. Two points are perhaps worth noting here: First, the size and strength of the Salomon Orchestra; and second, the fact that Haydn did not, as every conductor does now, direct his forces, baton in hand. The orchestra numbered between thirty-five and forty performers--a very small company compared with our Handel Festival and Richter Orchestras, but in Haydn's time regarded as quite sufficiently strong. There were sixteen violins, four tenors, three 'celli, four double basses, flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets and drums.

Salomon played the first violin and led the orchestra, and Haydn sat at the harpsichord, keeping the band together by an occasional chord or two, as the practice then was. Great composers have not always been great conductors, but Haydn had a winning way with his band, and generally succeeded in getting what he wanted.

A Rehersal Incident

An interesting anecdote is told by Dies of his first experience with the Salomon Orchestra. The symphony began with three single notes, which the orchestra played much too loudly; Haydn called for less tone a second and a third time, and still was dissatisfied. He was growing impatient. At this point he overheard a German player whisper to a neighbour in his own language: "If the first three notes don't please him, how shall we get through all the rest?" Thereupon, calling for the loan of a violin, he illustrated his meaning to such purpose that the band answered to his requirements in the first attempt. Haydn was naturally at a great disadvantage with an English orchestra by reason of his ignorance of the language. It may be true, as he said, that the language of music "is understood all over the world," but one cannot talk to an orchestra in crotchets and semi-breves.

The Hanover Square Rooms

At length the date of the first concert arrived, and a brilliant audience rewarded the enterprise, completely filling the Hanover Square Rooms, at that time the principal concert hall in London. It had been opened in 1775 by J. C. Bach, the eleventh son of the great Sebastian, when the advertisements announced that "the ladies' tickets are red and the gentlemen's black." It was there that, two years after the date of which we are writing, "Master Hummel, from Vienna," gave his first benefit; Liszt appeared in 1840, when the now familiar term "recital" was first used; Rubinstein made his English debut in 1842; and in the same year Mendelssohn conducted his Scotch Symphony for the first time in England. In 1844 the "wonderful little Joachim," then a youth of thirteen in a short jacket, made the first of his many subsequent visits to London, and played in the old "Rooms."

Hoops and Swords

So much for the associations of the concert hall in which Haydn directed some of his finest symphonies. And what about the audiences of Haydn's time? It was the day of the Sedan chair, when women waddled in hoops, like that of the lady mentioned in the Spectator, who appeared "as if she stood in a large drum." Even the royal princesses were, in Pope's phrase, "armed in ribs of steel" so wide that the Court attendants had to assist their ungainly figures through the doorways. Swords were still being worn as a regulation part of full dress, and special weapons were always provided at a grand concert for the use of the instrumental solo performers, who, when about to appear on the platform, were girt for the occasion by an attendant, known as the "sword-bearer." [See Musical Haunts in London, F. G. Edwards, quoting Dr W. H. Cummings.]

Haydn's first concert, we have said, was an immense success. Burney records that his appearance in the orchestra "seemed to have an electrical effect on all present, and he never remembered a performance where greater enthusiasm was displayed." A wave of musical excitement appears to have been passing through London, for on this very evening both Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres were packed with audiences drawn together by the oratorio performances there. Haydn was vastly pleased at having the slow movement of his symphony encored--an unusual occurrence in those days--and he spoke of it afterwards as worthy of mention in his biography. Fresh from the dinner-table, the audience generally fell asleep during the slow movements! When the novelty of the Salomon concerts had worn off, many of the listeners lapsed into their usual somnolence. Most men in Haydn's position would have resented such inattention by an outburst of temper. Haydn took it good-humouredly, and resolved to have his little joke.

The "Surprise" Symphony

He wrote the well-known "Surprise" Symphony. The slow movement of this work opens and proceeds in the most subdued manner, and at the moment when the audience may be imagined to have comfortably settled for their nap a sudden explosive fortissimo chord is introduced. "There all the women will scream," said Haydn, with twinkling eyes. A contemporary critic read quite a different "programme" into it. "The 'Surprise,'" he wrote, "might not be inaptly likened to the situation of a beautiful shepherdess who, lulled to slumber by the murmur of a distant waterfall, starts alarmed by the unexpected firing of a fowling-piece." One can fancy the composer's amusement at this highly-imaginative interpretation of his harmless bit of waggery.

Gallic Excitement

The same success which attended Haydn's first concert marked the rest of the series. The Prince of Wales's presence at the second concert no doubt gave a certain "lead" to the musical public. We read in one of the Gallic newspapers: "It is truly wonderful what sublime and august thoughts this master weaves into his works. Passages often occur which it is impossible to listen to without becoming excited--we are carried away by admiration, and are forced to applaud with hand and mouth. The Frenchmen here cannot restrain their transports in soft adagios; they will clap their hands in loud applause and thus mar the effect."

In the midst of all this enthusiasm the factionists were keeping up their controversy about the opening of Gallini's Theatre. Gallini had already engaged the services of Haydn, together with an orchestra led by Salomon, but nothing could be done without the Lord Chamberlain's license for the performance of operas. To prevent the issue of that license was the avowed object of the Pantheon management and their friends. The