“I, the undersigned, promise Signora Loisa Polzelli (in case I shall be disposed to marry again) to take no other for wife than the said Loisa Polzelli; and if I remain a widower, I promise the said Loisa Polzelli after my death to leave her a life pension of 300 gulden, that is 300 florins in Vienna money.  Valid before every court.  I sign myself,

“JOSEPH HAYDN,

“Maestro di Cappella of his Highness, the Prince Esterhazy.

Vienna, May 23, 1800.”

On this sad and icy postscript to the ardent love affair, Schmidt comments:  “The form of this writing leaves the conclusion plain, that Haydn was forced to this act by the Polzelli.  This throws a poor light on her character, and we dare not evade the conclusion that, for twenty years in this love affair for life, she had in mind a business arrangement with the master.”

Thus cynically writes Schmidt of the woman who for a score of years occupied Haydn’s affections.  And all of the biographers are inclined to heap upon her more or less contempt; but as you shall see a little later, the genial master himself was not above reproach, and Loisa’s anxiety was not unfounded, for her Joseph was casting amorous glances elsewhere.  Thus after the long ardour, the love letters have frozen into a hard and fast negative betrothal in which Haydn promises to marry no one else.  This, Schmidt says, was dragged out of Haydn.  But, if such a bond were necessary, it speaks surely as ill for Haydn as for the woman who had given her life and her good name to brighten his joyless heart.

Yet, dead as his love was, honour remained with him, though it was a rather close-reckoning honour.  Three months later he answered with money her request for house-rent, and in a will dated May 5, 1801, occurs this clause, cancelling his former agreement, and making new provisions: 

“To the widow Aloysia Polzelli, formerly singer at Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy’s, payable in ready money six months after my death, 100 florins, and each year from the date of my death, for her life ... 150 florins.  After her death her son, Anton Polzelli, to receive 150 florins for one year, having always been a good son to his mother and a grateful pupil to me.  N.B.—­I hereby revoke the obligation in Italian, signed by me, which may be produced by Mme. Polzelli; otherwise so many of my poor relations with greater claims would receive too little.  Finally Mme. Polzelli must be satisfied with the annuity of 150 florins.”  Two years later we find him writing to her (and, rumour said, his) son:  “I hope thy mamma finds herself well.”  In a new will, dated 1809, the year of his death, Haydn withdraws the cash gift to Loisa, and leaves her only 150 florins annuity.  She still remains, however, his chief heir.  Meanwhile, without waiting for his death, she had married again to Luigi Franci, like herself a singer and an Italian.  She outlived him and Haydn also, only to die in poverty and senility, far away in Hungary.  Poor, eighty-two year old Loisa!  Her affairs had been sadly mismanaged.