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Haydn's position, alike in music and in musical biography, is
almost unique. With the doubtful exception of Sebastian Bach, no
composer of the first rank ever enjoyed a more tranquil career.
Bach was not once outside his native Germany; Haydn left Austria
only to make those visits to England which had so important an
influence on the later manifestations of his genius: His was a
long, sane, sound, and on the whole, fortunate existence. For
many years he was poor and obscure, but if he had his time of
trial, he never experienced a time of failure. With practical
wisdom he conquered the Fates and became eminent. A hard,
struggling youth merged into an easy middle-age, and late years
found him in comfortable circumstances, with a solid reputation
as an artist, and a solid retiring-allowance from a princely
patron, whose house he had served for the better part of his
working career. Like Goethe and Wordsworth, he lived out all his
life. He was no Marcellus, shown for one brief moment and
"withdrawn before his springtime had brought forth the fruits of
summer." His great contemporary, Mozart, cut off while yet his
light was crescent, is known to posterity only by the products of
his early manhood. Haydn's sun set at the end of a long day,
crowning his career with a golden splendour whose effulgence
still brightens the ever-widening realm of music.
Voltaire once said of Dante that his reputation was becoming
greater and greater because no one ever read him. Haydn's
reputation is not of that kind. It is true that he may not appeal
to what has been called the "fevered modern soul," but there is
an old-world charm about him which is specially grateful in our
bustling, nerve-destroying, bilious age. He is still known as
"Papa Haydn," and the name, to use Carlyle's phrase, is
"significant of much." In the history of the art his position is
of the first importance. He was the father of instrumental music.
He laid the foundations of the modern symphony and sonata, and
established the basis of the modern orchestra. Without him,
artistically speaking, Beethoven would have been impossible. He
seems to us now a figure of a very remote past, so great have
been the changes in the world of music since he lived. But his
name will always be read in the golden book of classical music;
and whatever the evolutionary processes of the art may bring, the
time can hardly come when he will be forgotten, his works
unheard.
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