We find in this composer’s music, therefore, a largeness and dignity of treatment which have never been surpassed.  His command of melody is quite remarkable, but his use of it is under severe artistic restraint; for it is always characterized by breadth, simplicity, and directness.  He aimed at and attained the symmetrical balance of an old Greek play.

HAYDN.

I.

“Papa Haydn!” Thus did Mozart ever speak of his foster-father in music, and the title, transmitted to posterity, admirably expressed the sweet, placid, gentle nature, whose possessor was personally beloved no less than he was admired.  His life flowed, broad and unruffled, like some great river, unvexed for the most part by the rivalries, jealousies, and sufferings, oftentimes self-inflicted, which have harassed the careers of other great musicians.  He remained to the last the favorite of the imperial court of Vienna, and princes followed his remains to their last resting-place.

Joseph Haydn was the eldest of the twenty children of Matthias Haydn, a wheelwright at Rohrau, Lower Austria, where he was born in 1732.  At the age of twelve years he was engaged to sing in Vienna.  He became a chorister in St. Stephen’s Church, but offended the choir-master by the revolt on the part of himself and parents from submitting to the usual means then taken to perpetuate a fine soprano in boys.  So Haydn, who had surreptitiously picked up a good deal of musical knowledge apart from the art of singing, was at the age of sixteen turned out on the world.  A compassionate barber, however, took him in, and Haydn dressed and powdered wigs down-stairs, while he worked away at a little worm-eaten harpsichord at night in his room.  Unfortunate boy! he managed to get himself engaged to the barber’s daughter, Anne Keller, who was for a good while the Xantippe of his gentle life, and he paid dearly for his father-in-law’s early hospitality.

The young musician soon began to be known, as he played the violin in one church, the organ in another, and got some pupils.  His first rise was his acquaintance with Metastasio, the poet laureate of the court.  Through him, Haydn got introduced to the mistress of the Venetian embassador, a great musical enthusiast, and in her circle he met Porpora, the best music-master in the world, but a crusty, snarling old man.  Porpora held at Vienna the position of musical dictator and censor, and he exercised the tyrannical privileges of his post mercilessly.  Haydn was a small, dark-complexioned, insignificant-looking youth, and Porpora, of course, snubbed him most contemptuously.  But Haydn wanted instruction, and no one in the world could give it so well as the savage old maestro.  So he performed all sorts of menial services for him, cleaned his shoes, powdered his wig, and ran all his errands.  The result was that Porpora softened and consented to give his young admirer lessons—­no great hardship, for young Haydn proved a most apt and gifted pupil.  And it was not long either before the young musician’s compositions attracted public attention and found a sale.  The very curious relations between Haydn and Porpora are brilliantly sketched in George Sand’s “Consuelo.”