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His practice was to sketch out his ideas roughly in the morning,
and elaborate them in the afternoon, taking pains to preserve
unity in idea and form. "That is where so many young composers
fail," he said in reference to the latter point. "They string
together a number of fragments; they break off almost as soon as
they have begun, and so at the end the listener carries off no
definite impression." The importance of melody he specially
emphasized. "It is the air which is the charm of music," he
remarked, "and it is that which is most difficult to produce. The
invention of a fine melody is the work of genius." In another
place he says: "In vocal composition, the art of producing
beautiful melody may now almost be considered as lost; and when a
composer is so fortunate as to throw forth a passage that is
really melodious, he is sure, if he be not sensible of its
excellence, to overwhelm and destroy it by the fullness and
superfluity of his instrumental parts." [Compare Mozart's words
as addressed to Michael Kelly: "Melody is the essence of music. I
should liken one who invents melodies to a noble racehorse, and a
mere contrapuntist to a hired post-hack."]
He is stated to have always composed with the aid of the
pianoforte or harpsichord; and indeed we find him writing to
Artaria in 1788 to say that he has been obliged to buy a new
instrument "that I might compose your clavier sonatas
particularly well." This habit of working out ideas with the
assistance of the piano has been condemned by most theorists as
being likely to lead to fragmentariness. With Haydn at any rate
the result was entirely satisfactory, for, as Sir Hubert Parry
points out, the neatness and compactness of his works is perfect.
It is very likely, as Sir Hubert says, that most modern composers
have used the pianoforte a good deal--not so much to help them to
find out their ideas, as to test the details and intensify their
musical sensibility by the excitant sounds, the actual sensual
impression of which is, of course, an essential element in all
music. The composer can always hear such things in his mind, but
obviously the music in such an abstract form can never have quite
as much effect upon him as when the sounds really strike upon his
ear. [See Studies of Great Composers, by C. Hubert H. Parry, p.
109.]
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