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

Pleyel in Opposition

But other matters now engaged his attention. The directors of the Professional Concerts, desiring to take advantage of his popularity, endeavoured to make him cancel his engagements with Salomon and Gallini. In this they failed. "I will not," said Haydn, "break my word to Gallini and Salomon, nor shall any desire for dirty gain induce me to do them an injury. They have run so great a risk and gone to so much expense on my account that it is only fair they should be the gainers by it." Thus defeated in their object, the Professionals decided to bring over Haydn's own pupil, Ignaz Pleyel, to beat the German on his own ground. It was not easy to upset Haydn's equanimity in an affair of this kind; his gentle nature, coupled with past experiences, enabled him to take it all very calmly. "From my youth upwards," he wrote, "I have been exposed to envy, so it does not surprise me when any attempt is made wholly to crush my poor talents, but the Almighty above is my support.... There is no doubt that I find many who are envious of me in London also, and I know them almost all. Most of them are Italians. But they can do me no harm, for my credit with this nation has been established far too many years." As a rule, he was forbearing enough with his rivals. At first he wrote of Pleyel: "He behaves himself with great modesty." Later on he remarked that "Pleyel's presumption is everywhere criticized." Nevertheless, "I go to all his concerts, for I love him." It is very pleasant to read all this. But how far Haydn's feelings towards Pleyel were influenced by patriotic considerations it is impossible to say.

The defeated Professionals had a certain advantage by being first in the field in 1792. But Haydn was only a few days behind them with his opening concert, and the success of the entire series was in no way affected by the ridiculous rivalry. Symphonies, divertimenti for concerted instruments, string quartets, a clavier trio, airs, a cantata, and other works were all produced at these concerts, and with almost invariable applause. Nor were Haydn's services entirely confined to the Salomon concerts. He conducted for various artists, including Barthelemon, the violinist; Haesler, the pianist; and Madam Mara, of whom he tells that she was hissed at Oxford for not rising during the "Hallelujah" Chorus.

Close of the Season

The last concert was given on June 6 "by desire," when Haydn's compositions were received with "an extasy of admiration." Thus Salomon's season ended, as the Morning Chronicle put it, with the greatest eclat. Haydn's subsequent movements need not detain us long. He made excursions to Windsor Castle and to Ascot "to see the races," of which he has given an account in his note-book.

Herschel and Haydn

From Ascot he went to Slough, where he was introduced to Herschel. In this case there was something like real community of tastes, for the astronomer was musical, having once played the oboe, and later on acted as organist, first at Halifax Parish Church, and then at the Octagon Chapel Bath. The big telescope with which he discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 was an object of great interest to Haydn, who was evidently amazed at the idea of a man sitting out of doors "in the most intense cold for five or six hours at a time."

Visits were also paid to Vauxhall Gardens, where "the music is fairly good" and "coffee and milk cost nothing." "The place and its diversions," adds Haydn, "have no equal in the world."

At St Paul's

But the most interesting event of this time to Haydn was the meeting of the Charity Children in St Paul's Cathedral, when something like 4000 juveniles took part. "I was more touched," he says in his diary, "by this innocent and reverent music than by any I ever heard in my life!" And then he notes the following chant by John Jones: [Jones was organist of St Paul's Cathedral at this time. His chant, which was really in the key of D, has since been supplanted. Haydn made an error in bar 12.]

[Figure: a musical score excerpt]

Curiously enough Berlioz was impressed exactly in the same way when he heard the Charity Children in 1851. He was in London as a juror at the Great Exhibition; and along with his friend, the late G. A. Osborne, he donned a surplice and sang bass in the select choir. He was so moved by the children's singing that he hid his face behind his music and wept. "It was," he says, "the realization of one part of my dreams, and a proof that the powerful effect of musical masses is still absolutely unknown." [See Berlioz's Life and Letters, English edition, Vol. I., p. 281.]

London Acquaintances

Haydn made many interesting acquaintances during this London visit. Besides those already mentioned, there was Bartolozzi, the famous engraver, to whose wife he dedicated three clavier trios and a sonata in E flat (Op. 78), which, so far unprinted in Germany, is given by Sterndale Bennett in his Classical Practice. There was also John Hunter, described by Haydn as "the greatest and most celebrated chyrurgus in London," who vainly tried to persuade him to have a polypus removed from his nose. It was Mrs Hunter who wrote the words for most of his English canzonets, including the charming "My mother bids me bind my hair." And then there was Mrs Billington, the famous singer, whom Michael Kelly describes as "an angel of beauty and the Saint Cecilia of song." There is no more familiar anecdote than that which connects Haydn with Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of this notorious character. Carpani is responsible for the tale. He says that Haydn one day found Mrs Billington sitting to Reynolds, who was painting her as St Cecilia listening to the angels. "It is like," said Haydn, "but there is a strange mistake." "What is that?" asked Reynolds. "You have painted her listening to the angels. You ought to have represented the angels listening to her." It is a very pretty story, but it cannot possibly be true. Reynolds's portrait of Mrs Billington was painted in 1789, two years before Haydn's arrival, and was actually shown in the Academy Exhibition of 1790, the last to which Sir Joshua contributed. [The portrait, a whole length, was sold in 1798 for 325 pounds, 10s., and again at Christie's, in 1845, for 505 guineas--to an American, as usual.] Of course Haydn may have made the witty remark here attributed to him, but it cannot have been at the time of the painting of the portrait. That he was an enthusiastic admirer of Mrs Billington there can be no doubt.

Another Romance

There was another intimacy of more import, about which it is necessary to speak at some length. When Dies published his biography of Haydn in 1810 he referred to a batch of love-letters written to the composer during this visit to London. The existence of the letters was known to Pohl, who devotes a part of his Haydn in London to them, and prints certain extracts; but the letters themselves do not appear to have been printed either in the original English or in a German translation until Mr Henry E. Krehbiel, the well-known American musical critic, gave them to the world through the columns of the New York Tribune. Mr Krehbiel was enabled to do this by coming into possession of a transcript of Haydn's London note-book, with which we will deal presently. Haydn, as he informs us, had copied all the letters out in full, "a proceeding which tells its own story touching his feelings towards the missives and their fair author." He preserved them most carefully among the souvenirs of his visit, and when Dies asked him about them, he replied: "They are letters from an English widow in London who loved me. Though sixty years old, she was still lovely and amiable, and I should in all likelihood have married her if I had been single." Who was the lady thus celebrated? In Haydn's note-book the following entry occurs: "Mistress Schroeter, No. 6 James Street, Buckingham Gate." The inquiry is here answered: Mistress Schroeter was the lady.

Mistress Schroeter

Haydn, it will be seen, describes her as a widow of sixty. According to Goldsmith, women and music should never be dated; but in the present case, there is a not unnatural curiosity to discover the lady's age. Mr Krehbiel gives good grounds for doubting Haydn's statement that Mistress Schroeter was sixty when he met her. She had been married to Johann Samuel Schroeter, an excellent German musician, who settled in London in 1772. Schroeter died in 1788, three years before the date of Haydn's visit, when he was just thirty-eight. Now Dr Burney, who must have known the family, says that Schroeter "married a young lady of considerable fortune, who was his scholar, and was in easy circumstances." If, therefore, Mrs Schroeter was sixty years old when Haydn made her acquaintance, she must have been nineteen years her husband's senior, and could not very well be described as a "young" lady at the time of her marriage.

It is, however, unnecessary to dwell upon the matter of age. The interesting point is that Haydn fell under the spell of the charming widow. There is no account of their first meeting; but it was probably of a purely professional nature. Towards the end of June 1791 the lady writes: "Mrs Schroeter presents her compliments to Mr Haydn, and informs him she is just returned to town, and will be very happy to see him whenever it is convenient to him to give her a lesson." A woman of sixty should hardly have been requiring lessons, especially after having been the wife of a professor who succeeded the "English Bach" as music-master to the Queen. But lessons sometimes cover a good deal of love-making, and that was clearly the case with Haydn and Mrs Schroeter.

Love Letters

There is indeed some reason to doubt if the lessons were continued. At any rate, by February 1792, the affair had ripened so far as to allow the lady to address the composer as "my dear," and disclose her tender solicitude for his health. On the 7th of the following month she writes that she was "extremely sorry" to part with him so suddenly the previous night. "Our conversation was particularly interesting, and I had a thousand affectionate things to say to you. My heart was and is full of tenderness for you, but no language can express half the love and affection I feel for you. You are dearer to me every day of my life."

This was pretty warm, considering that Haydn was still in the bonds of wedlock. We cannot tell how far he reciprocated the feeling, his letters, if he wrote any, not having been preserved; but it may be safely inferred that a lady who was to be "happy to see you both in the morning and the evening" did not do all the love-making. On the 4th of April the composer gets a present of soap, and is the "ever dear Haydn" of the "invariable and truly affectionate" Mistress Schroeter. He had been working too hard about this particular date (he notes that he was "bled in London" on the 17th of March), and on the 12th the "loveress," to use Marjorie Fleming's term, is "truly anxious" about her "dear love," for whom her regard is "stronger every day." An extract from the letter of April 19 may be quoted as it stands:

I was extremely sorry to hear this morning that you were indisposed. I am told you were five hours at your