Haydn counted the days he spent in England among the happiest of his life. He was universally respected there, a new world was opened up to him, and he was enabled by generous profits at last to pull out of the limited circumstances in which he had grown old and gray; for in 1790 he had hardly two thousand gulden capital of his own… [snip] He earned in a three-year stay in England something like twenty-four thousand gulden*, of which about nine thousand went for the journey, his support, and other expenses.
*The net 15,000 florins = ~$70,000 USD (~55.000£)/2017
Griesinger
Is it any wonder Haydn loved England? Until 1790, he was facing the prospect of impending old age with nothing more than the money he got for selling his house in Eisenstadt back in 1778, and his 1000 gulden per annum pension from the Esterházy's. It is no exaggeration, even for a passionate Haydn fan such as me, to say that at this point in time, Haydn was easily the most famous and highly esteemed living composer. England was influential that way.
Haydn and Elssler, with the parrot, the silver plate and the coconut from Clementi, along with the pile of music manuscripts including the last-minute addition of the libretto from Salomon about the Creation of the World, took a carriage from London to the port, saying goodbye for the last time to the country he had grown so fond of. Back in Austria, who knew what awaited him? There was a new Emperor, a newer Prince, and an older wife; what did the remainder of his life have in store?
Before Vienna, though, there remained a fair bit of travel, and to new places too.
Haydn this time traveled back by way of Hamburg expressly to make the personal acquaintance of C. P. E. Bach. He came too late; Bach was dead, and of the family he found only one daughter living.
Dies
Flute Trios of Haydn. Recommended listening!
Of course, we know that C.P.E. Bach died in 1788. Gotwals (and later, Landon) both say Haydn must certainly have known this, but I wonder if he did, really. Not only was communication of such news very spotty at best, but as we saw with Mozart, Haydn wrote to Marianne Genzinger, "I look forward tremendously to going home and to embracing all my good friends. I only regret that the great Mozart will not be among them, if it is really true, which I trust it is not, that he has died.". And false reports of Haydn's own death in 1804 inspired Cherubini to write a cantata, Chant Sur La Mort de Joseph Haydn, for him! At the very worst, David Wyn Jones' speculation that it was an opportunity to pay homage to a composer he had always respected and admired, was sufficient reason to call on Anna Caroline Philippine Bach. It may have done well for both of them.
There is a certain irony, not totally surprising, in what he discovered when he got home. Even before his arrival we see this:
Pressburger Zeitung – 8 September 1795
According to letters from Hamburg, the Princely Esterházy Kapellmeister Herr Joseph Haydn, that universally esteemed and indeed very great composer whose excellent compositions are everywhere received with the greatest approbation, arrived there from London on the 20th of last month, continuing the journey towards Vienna the next day.
I don't know about you, but I had to read that one twice. Can you imagine such a thing being written in Austria at any time before now? Although Pressburg is like having home field advantage, even there they were never quite so laudatory!
Haydn oftentimes repeated that he had become famous in Germany only by way of England. The worth of his works was recognized, but that public homage which conspicuous talent usually enjoys came only quite late.
Griesinger
From this point forward though, we will be seeing far more adulatory press than otherwise, and at last, they [usually] even spell his name correctly.
The remainder of the trip home was not entirely uneventful. We learn from Haydn's future student, Neukomm (whom we will meet many times later) that one of the places they stopped for the night was the town of Passau. In his honor, on the evening they spent, the local Kapellmeister, Joseph Friebert, arranged a performance in the Cathedral of Passau of The Seven Last Words, to which Friebert had added some choral parts and recitatives. Haydn told Neukomm that 'The performance was satisfactory, but the vocal parts, I could have done better'. We shall soon see that thought come to fruition.
If Landon's speculation that Haydn stopped over in Linz is indeed correct, one wonders what he must have thought of the clearly very shoddy performance of Orlando paladino (in German, of course) which was playing there. I found it rather more amusing than Haydn would have done, to read 'for in our opinion, this music was NOT written for this cast!'. But it does show the ongoing popularity of that particular opera, which was now thirteen years old and still going strong. Virtually every city with an opera house had it on the agenda until nearly the time of Haydn's death, the only one of his operas to achieve such success at a local level.
Finally though, we have reached Vienna; it is time to get back to work.
Engraving by Artaria
Vienna, 1795
One of the things we saw in London was the ongoing threat of the French Revolutionary Wars. But it wasn't just the English who were hip-deep in conflict; if anything, the Austrians were even deeper. For them, it was more than avenging Marie Antoinette, who frankly had been so long gone she was little remembered by her young nephew. What Francis actually saw slipping away was the entire foundation that the power and wealth of the Habsburgs had been built on. We saw George III shake off an assassination attempt as though it was merely a fly buzzing around his head. Would young Franz have the fortitude to emulate this, or would Vienna be changed forever by his fervid reaction? While you may wonder at the relevance to Haydn, as we will see, the ongoing political changes would impact not just him, but every subsequent composer throughout the 19th century!
There was no way things would ever be the same for Haydn in the Vienna of 1795. He had outlived his third Esterházy prince, and the new one was an essentially unknown quantity. His two best friends, Mozart and Genzinger, were dead. Polzelli was in Italy, never to be seen again. Other than his sullen, erstwhile student, Beethoven, and the beloved (!) Mrs. H., we are virtually starting over with a new cast of characters. But even changes to Haydn's immediate circle pale in comparison to the differences to be seen in Vienna itself. There's a war on, and it has as much to do with internal cultural evolution as it does with the hated French. Let's see what has been going on while Haydn was out conquering the world.
Even though Joseph II was long dead, his legacy of Enlightened Despotism was still going strong. It is very difficult, at this remove, to estimate just how much furor he created in his attempts to deconstruct the feudal system and the Church. Everyone had something they were angry about, whether it was the clerics with their loss of power or the peasants who could no longer make pilgrimages. So any attempt to placate everyone was doomed to fail and likely create even more problems. Leopold II had instituted a mild rollback of some of the more controversial regulations, but he died after just two years, hardly long enough to undo thirty years worth of reform.
This left Franz, Leopold's son and still in his early twenties, with some major headaches. When you throw in the threat of Republicanism and the stress of constant war, with the fact that Franz was only barely trained and had few allies in Vienna yet, you can see how this would make an essentially quirky man become, oh, just a bit quirkier.
In 1792 and '93, Franz attempted to get an evaluation of where things stood so he could decide what moves to make. As it turned out, his government and all his advisers were about evenly split between Josephinians and Anti-Josephinians. The Antis, consisting mainly of senior officials, clerics and high aristocracy, strongly advocated canceling, en masse, every law passed during the reign of Joseph, both as Emperor and while he was adviser and co-ruler with Maria Theresia. The Josephinians, on the other hand, wanted nothing changed and let things take their course. If you can imagine possible outcomes, start out with repealing every law passed in the last 35 years in your country and see where that takes you. Or, leaving in effect a large slate of laws which are not only unpopular with nearly all classes of your subjects, but also will eventually turn your country into a state with no need for an Emperor or any ruling class. Neither of these appealed to Franz, who, we will recall, believed, as did all Kings at the time, that he ruled by Divine Right.
Franz elevated his former tutor, Count Franz von Colloredo, who was uncle to Count Hieronymus Colloredo the nemesis of Mozart, and an archconservative. Colloredo regarded the French Revolution as the work of a small group of self-seeking troublemakers who, not having been checked by immediate vigorous action, could be defeated only by the restoration of the Bourbons. He was also convinced that the revolutionaries carried on their subversive activities under the guise of science and enlightenment. Hence he looked with disfavor upon intellectuals as a group and was suspicious of all but the most conservative lawyers, journalists, and political thinkers. His ideal was to maintain the political status quo, through strict censorship if necessary. And to this cause he and his supporters were able to win over the emperor. One can scarcely emphasize how important to Vienna's future this attitude came to be.
Leopold had always advised Franz to keep a sharp lookout for suspicious characters and subversive publications, so on 3 January, 1793, he established a new state authority called the Polizeihofstelle or Police Bureau, headed up by Count John Anthony von Pergen who had been chief of police under Joseph and Leopold and was the founder of the Austrian secret police. Because he was now sixty-seven years old, Pergen was assisted by Count Franz Joseph von Saurau. Saurau's opponents called him Torquemada and accused him of inventing conspiracies so that he might crush them and thus impress the emperor with his zeal and alertness. Such a charge would be as difficult to disprove as to prove.
Excerpt from letter from Count Pergen to regional governors,
5 April 1793:
…Your Excellency will, in particular . . . tolerate no clubs or other secret, suspect gatherings under whatever name. These rarely aim at anything good, and because of their potentialities for evil may become dangerous in spite of all intentions to the contrary. This has been amply demonstrated by experience. In this connection it is understood that the scattering or detention of really dangerous persons among the participants must be done without attracting undue notice...
If the Freemasons weren't completely wiped out under Joseph, they certainly were now!
In this political atmosphere the Viennese police in the summer of 1794 announced the discovery of a "Jacobin conspiracy" to overthrow the monarchy and convert it into a republic on the French model. This news set Franz's mind in a political mold which remained rigid for the rest of his life. Thereafter, "the specter of revolution" never ceased to haunt him. So, ironically, the chief reminder of Joseph's reforming days, zealously fostered even under Franz, was the institution of an all-powerful police.
Since Austria was at war and French emissaries were urging the subjects of Francis to rebel, the long arm of the police began to reach into every corner of the monarchy. Strict watch was kept over all foreigners, including diplomatic representatives, and over every native who was in position to influence the thoughts of others. Persons who had distinguished themselves in political, social, or economic endeavors were especially interesting to the police. The latter carefully noted the books and papers the intellectuals read, the discussions they held, the company they kept, the journeys they took, and the assemblies and cafes they frequented. Spies were placed in every branch of the government and among all levels of the population. Skill was displayed in the secret opening of letters and the imitation of private seals.
Saurau's hunt for "sneaking agitators" and "Jacobins" led to a series of notorious trials in 1794 and 1795. It had for some time been rumored that conspirators were plotting to blow up a strategic Vienna bridge, start incendiary fires in several parts of the city, and take advantage of the ensuing disorder to precipitate a revolution under the cry: "Long live liberty!" According to these stories the imperial family was marked for murder, while the aristocrats and wealthier members of the middle class were scheduled to be plundered.
Among many taken into custody were First Lieutenant Franz Hebenstreit von Streitenfels, inventor and poet and Abbot (Joseph) Ignace Martinovics, who was a secret agent under Leopold II. In the eyes of the Austrian government they were the two most dangerous prisoners. Hebenstreit was sentenced to "the confiscation of his property, nullification of his patent of nobility, dishonorable discharge from the armed forces, and hanging". The execution was carried out publicly in Vienna in January, 1795 and the condemned man ascended the scaffold bearing a placard with the inscription: "Franz Hebenstreit, for treason". Martinovics was beheaded in May, 1795, having first been made to witness the decapitation of four of his Hungarian co-conspirators. In all, at least twenty others were executed, since all were found guilty. Some, like Martinovics, actually were plotting against the Emperor. Others were merely bitter over having got the sack for their political beliefs and said the wrong thing in the wrong place. That's where things stood in September, when Haydn rolled into town from London.
March 1800 AmZ article by Rochlitz
As we saw back in 1793, Count Harrach, in Rohrau, had constructed a monument to Haydn on an island he had built in the River Leitha, a tributary of the Danube. Haydn didn't know about the monument in 1793, but by 1795 he had heard about it in some way, and according to biographer Ludwig Pohl, upon his return from London, one of his first acts was to accompany three of the Counts Harrach and some 'other music lovers' to Rohrau to see the monument. Haydn hadn't been to Rohrau since 1764, when he went to attend business related to the death of his father. So when Pohl reports that when they entered his birth house, Haydn knelt at the threshold and kissed it, it is not hard to imagine the rush of memories, all good ones, that came over him at the time. They all went down to the park to see the monument afterwards. There is little else in the literature about it, except that Haydn had a wooden model of it on his desk in Gumpendorf. Dies says he used to correct the birthdate given on the tablet from 1 April to 31 March whenever a visitor would comment on it. One thing I found interesting, and am unable to elaborate at the moment, is that here in the Rochlitz engraving from 1800, there is no bust of Haydn at the top. In looking as closely as I can at the engraving in my first essay on the monument, I don't see it there either. It must have been put on early times, perhaps when the tablets were added at his death. This looks like a project which is in need of a champion.
The remainder of 1795 consists mainly in getting settled in and organized. There was a little bit of musical theater now being given in Eisenstadt, since Nicholas II apparently was a fan and hired some players. They plundered costumes from Eszterháza's Opera House, but there was never any indication that anything ever again would happen there. Nicholas liked Vienna, and he needed Eisenstadt as an official seat. For now, Haydn spent time at both places.
Relations with Beethoven were also renewed. Haydn presented a big (self)-benefit Academy in December at Vienna, in the smaller Redoutensaal. He premiered three of his London Symphonies, including the Military with certainty, but the other two remain unknown. Also, Irene Dutillieu, the favorite soprano in Vienna at the time, sang Scena di Berenice, while Beethoven premiered the final version of his Bb piano concerto (Opus 19) to considerable acclaim. It must have been a fine occasion, although we will never know much more about it than this, since Vienna, still rather provincial at that time, didn't have the newspaper reviews the next morning like cosmopolitan London had.
1795 has been an interesting year. From the surprise failure of the Salomon Concerts in January through the many times spent with the Royals; the fantastic Dr. Haydn's Night benefit and the other nine Opera Concerts, the (presumably) sad parting with Rebecca, Therese Jansen Bartolozzi and Anne Hunter, then the interesting trip home to a Vienna which must have been hard to recognize. It would have been a strain on a person half his age, yet the 63 year-old Haydn seems to have taken it all in stride. As we will see next year, there was no shortage of musical inspiration remaining in the sack, and though it will be different genres from what we are used to, the quality will be higher than ever! So let's say adieu to this year and get ready to move on to bigger and better things!
Thanks for reading!