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Very likely it was this comparison of the magazine writer that
suggested Dittersdorf's remark to Joseph II in 1786, when the
emperor requested him to draw an analogy between Haydn's and
Mozart's chamber music. Dittersdorf shrewdly replied by asking
the emperor in his turn to draw a parallel between Gellert and
Klopstock; whereupon Joseph made answer by saying that both were
great poets, but that Klopstock's works required attentive study,
while Gellert's beauties were open to the first glance. The analogy,
Dittersdorf tells us, "pleased the emperor very much." Its point is,
however, not very clear--that is to say, it is not very clear
whether the emperor meant to compare Klopstock with Haydn and
Gellert with Mozart or vice versa, and whether, again, he regarded
it as more of a merit that the poet and the composer should require
study or be "open to the first glance." Joseph was certainly
friendly towards Mozart, but by all accounts he had no great love
for Haydn, to whose "tricks and nonsense" he made frequent sneering
reference.
The first noteworthy event of 1766 was the death of Werner, which
took place on March 5. It made no real difference to Haydn, who,
as we have seen, had been from the first, in effect, if not in
name, chief of the musical establishment; but it at least freed
him from sundry petty annoyances, and left him absolutely master
of the musical situation. Shortly after Werner's death, the
entire musical establishment at Eisenstadt was removed to the
prince's new palace of Esterhaz, with which Haydn was now to be
connected for practically the whole of his remaining professional
career.
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