It is no great challenge to predict a successful career when it gets onto a trajectory such as Haydn was maintaining in the decade from 1757 to 1766. From employment by a wealthy civil servant who couldn’t really afford him in Fürnberg, to a noble Morzin family in Bohemia and Vienna who were a big step up but still couldn’t quite afford him, to, in 1761, a contract offer from one of the wealthiest men in Europe! So regularly losing jobs and hitting hard luck, yet always landing on his feet one stair higher - falling upwards the entire time.
Prince Paul Esterházy was a man blessed with many sorts of good fortune. Not least was that he had excellent taste in music, and was a talented instrumentalist. A Kenner, and an incredibly wealthy one at that. Robbins-Landon’s brief history of the family discusses how they amassed their wealth (through good fortune and loyalty rather than plotting and subversion; how pleasant!), and also details their many accomplishments in the arts in the decades leading up to their engagement of Haydn. If you are keen on it, you might check out Haydn. Chronicle and Works Vol. I and you will also come away admiring the family enterprise. The fact that the union of the Esterházy’s and Haydn was probably the greatest partnership ever in the musical arts is reason enough to do that, or at least it was to me.
Haydn’s name was not unknown in Vienna in 1760. The newly popular form of the symphony was being noised about town, and with sixteen or so specimens out there, Haydn could scarcely escape attention. In addition, his earlier contacts made through Metastasio and Porpora and Countess Thun et al, certainly would stand him in good stead now. We don’t even know when it was beyond an educated guess, but one day Count Morzin had to have called Haydn into the library, and we can imagine how the conversation went from there:
Morzin: Well, Haydn, we need to discuss your future…
Haydn: Noble Count, if this is about my getting married without permission, I assure you…
Morzin: No, my friend, it isn’t that at all. In fact, I’m flat broke. You and the wife, and all the musicians, need to pack up your things and go elsewhere.
Haydn: Ah, I see. Well, I got a request yesterday from a Prince Paul Esterházy to visit him at his place, would you suggest I attend then?
Morzin: Oh, Esterházy eh? Certainly do attend him. Perhaps you will consider taking me along with you??
OK, maybe not quite like that, but we are allowed to write our own script, since they apparently were off-the-record about it for quite some time. The first documented evidence we have of Haydn’s employment is his famous contract of May 1, 1761. Various bits of evidence clearly point to Haydn already working for the Prince earlier though. The date March 19 is mentioned by Griesinger, and it seems like a strong possibility since the musician’s annual contracts which were signed and dated on April 1 have a clause stating “the musician must obey all orders from the Kapellmeister or the Vice-Kapellmeister” which was a new phrasing. Since there was no “Vice-Kapellmeister” before Haydn his appointment to that post must have been a done deal even before his contract signing of May 1.
The story seems to be that Esterházy heard Symphony #1 being played and was duly impressed by it, to the point which he actively sought out its composer. There were solid reasons for this; Haydn’s first Ober-Kapellmeister, Gregor Werner, was already an old man. In fact, he died five years later leaving Haydn fully prepared to take his place. But more important than health was the simple fact that Werner was a strict-style old time musician. Prince Paul was a connoisseur on the leading edge of music at the time and he wanted his next leader to reflect his own taste. So any way you slice it, our man was in the right place at the right time.
In closing, I would love to slap around the 19th century some more. Social conventions change over time, this is a given of our culture. Haydn’s unique position at the time of his death in 1809 as the most celebrated composer on earth, coupled with the recent, twin social upheavals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution gave the Romantic Generation just what they needed to plant their own flag of cultural superiority, by making Haydn a musical piñata for their own self-glorification. But facts can’t be changed by casting a different light on them, they can only be slanted. As I stated earlier, the contract between Haydn and the Esterházy’s was one of the greatest partnerships ever to bless the musical arts. Everything in history needs to be taken in the context of its own time, and the fact is, in 1761, there wasn’t a composer alive who would not have given his fondest possession to get the job Haydn got. And he was bursting with pride when, before his death in 1763, his father came to visit in Eisenstadt and saw his son leading the orchestra of the Prince in blue and gold livery and playing music of his own composition. While this might not be the dream of modern times, there could hardly be a greater attainment for the son of the village wheelwright in mid-eighteenth century Austria!
Thanks for reading!