|
Of Haydn's general style as a composer it is hardly necessary to
speak. To say that a composition is "Haydnish" is to express in
one word what is well understood by all intelligent amateurs.
Haydn's music is like his character--clear, straightforward,
fresh and winning, without the slightest trace of affectation or
morbidity. Its perfect transparency, its firmness of design, its
fluency of instrumental language, the beauty and inexhaustible
invention of its melody, its studied moderation, its child-like
cheerfulness--these are some of the qualities which mark the
style of this most genial of all the great composers.
That he was not deep, that he does not speak a message of the
inner life to the latter-day individual, who, in the Ossianic
phrase, likes to indulge in "the luxury of grief," must, of
course, be admitted. The definite embodiment of feeling which we
find in Beethoven is not to be found in him. It was not in his
nature. "My music," says Schubert, "is the production of my
genius and my misery." Haydn, like Mendelssohn, was never more
than temporarily miserable. But in music the gospel of despair
seldom wants its preachers. To-day it is Tschaikowsky; to-morrow it
will be another. Haydn meant to make the world happy, not to tear
it with agony. "I know," he said, "that God has bestowed a talent
upon me, and I thank Him for it. I think I have done my duty, and
been of use in my generation by my works. Let others do the
same."
|
|
