Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/574

540 of his services being required at. But when in  died, and his successor dissolved the, allowing Haydn a considerable , the latter was at last at  to accept a munificent offer from , the  and , in whose company he started for , where  occupied a leading position in the al. They left in , and travelled by way of , where  had been. There, accordingly, a halt was made, and Haydn was received by with every  due to his fame. The amusing description of a given during his stay at  maybe read in Thayer’s biography of, who at  was a member of the  , and not unlikely made on this occasion Haydn’s acquaintance. On the latter’s return journey the submitted a  to the celebrated, whom he soon afterwards followed to  to become his pupil. It is well known that the relations between the great master and his were not altogether what might have been desired. ’s genius was of too individual a type to bear the impress of a nature so different as Haydn’s, and the latter may not always have taken sufficient trouble to enter into the ways of his. Certain it is that, at one time of his career, delighted in speaking slightingly of “Papa Haydn,” and, for instance, refused to call himself Haydn’s pupil, because, as he bluntly said, he never  anything under his. He even went so far as to suspect Haydn of wilfully trying to keep him back in his studies. It was only in his later that this animosity gave way to the more genial appreciation of his great predecessor, an expression of which is quoted at the beginning of this notice. Haydn’s visit to was a succession of triumphs. Dr Burney welcomed him with a laudatory poem; the various al of  vied for his presence; and on  8,, he was created  of  by the  of. At also he was received with every distinction, and the  followed the  example. Neither were more substantial rewards wanting. Haydn’s engagement with was to  and  at the s in the Hanover Square Rooms six, and the success of these may be judged from the fact that at Haydn’s benefit , for which 200 had been d to him, the s rose to 350. He also appeared at other (one given by himself at Hanover Square Rooms, where amongst other  the Seven Words already referred to was performed), always with equal success. The same events were repeated in the, when the  began in , and concluded with an extra  in. The known as the “Salomon Set,” comprising some of Haydn’s finest , are the permanent record of the connexion of the two. In Haydn also went to hear the   at St Paul’s, whose  produced on him as deep an impression as it did on  many  later. “I was more touched by this innocent and reverent ,” he wrote in his diary, “than by any I ever heard in my life.” Haydn left in , but only to return in. In addition to his earlier works six new were played at the  of, which in the  were given at the ’s -room and terminated on  1, , when Haydn appeared for the last time in. In addition to valuable presents from and other persons, he realized 1200 by his second  visit, from which he returned to  in the  of, to resume once more his functions in the newly organized  of. He was now well stricken in, and might have rested on his. But so far from this being the case, the two on which—apart from his  and s—his  must mainly rest, belong to this last epoch of his life. These were the The Creation, and the  The Seasons. They were both to  translations of , the former being compiled from Paradise Lost, the latter from Thomson’s Seasons. The Creation was first performed in public on 19,, when its success was as immediate as it has since proved permanent. The Seasons was begun soon after the completion of The Creation, and finished in very little time. No one, delighted by the charm and spontaneity of its, would suspect it to be the work of a feeble old man. Such, however, Haydn had now become. He wrote little after The Seasons, and his public appearances were few and far between. His old age was surrounded by the of his friends and the esteem of the al, but his failing  did not admit of much active enjoyment. He was seen in public for the last time at a performance of The Creation in. But his own made so overpowering an impression on him that he had to be carried out of the hall. He died on 31,, during the occupation of  by ’s , and many  s followed his  to the. Haydn’s comprize almost every form of  and. Of his the  are of infinitely less importance than The Creation and The Seasons. In the former there are points of grand and truly al conception, surpassed by few masters except, and the idyllic charm of the latter is as fresh as it was. At the same time the great importance of Haydn in the lies elsewhere. It was as an  that he opened a new epoch of. That amongst his 125 l there are many extremely slight efforts is a matter of course. Even his finest, such as the celebrated Surprise, or the one in d in  “mit dem Paukenwirbel,” on account of the characteristic -roll occurring in it, are  if compared with ’s colossal efforts. At the same time it is true that without Haydn’s modest substruction ’s mighty edifice would have been impossible. It was Haydn who first fixed the form of the and gave it consistency of development. The lucid and treatment of his themes and the  of his  movements remain still unsurpassed. And the same may be said in almost the same of his, of which he  no less than eighty-three. It is by such as these that Haydn has earned the name of father of , generally and justly applied to him. At the same time it cannot be denied that there is in his works a certain want of intensity and depth. He avoids the high places of and ; his path lies mostly in the smiling  of  and agreeable sentiment. In the former especially he excels, and it ought to be noted that his is of that peculiarly  type which is as harmless as it is charming, and to the genial influence of which even such serious s as  and  have had to submit. Some of Haydn’s especially seem to spring immediately from the consciousness of the. How much he was at one with is further proved by such a  as his “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” which has become the n al, and is one of the rare instances in which a genuine volkslied can be traced to a celebrated ,—for generally the  of the  are produced by the. To sum up, Haydn’s place in the will remain unassailed by all the changes al taste has undergone since, or may still undergo. His, though simple, are genuinely inspired, and will never lose their 