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Character and personality.
The traditional image of Haydn's personality has been that of ‘Papa Haydn’: pious, good-humoured, concerned for the welfare of others, proud of his students, regular in habits, conservative. Although not inaccurate, it is one-sided; it reflects the elderly and increasingly frail man his first biographers knew. Insight into the personality and behaviour of the vigorous and productive composer, performer, Kapellmeister, impresario, businessman, conqueror of London, husband and lover, whose career had already spanned 50 years when Griesinger met him in 1799, must be inferred from his correspondence (which is more revealing than is usually assumed) and from other sources.
Haydn's public life exemplified the Enlightenment ideal of the honnête homme: the man whose good character and worldly success enable and justify each other. His modesty and probity were everywhere acknowledged (he was occasionally entrusted with secret diplomatic communications). These traits were not only prerequisites to his success as Kapellmeister, entrepreneur and public figure, but also aided the favourable reception of his music. A more appropriate sense of ‘Papa’ would be that of ‘patriarch’, as in the resolution making him a life member of the Tonkünstler-Societät in 1797, ‘by virtue of his extraordinary merit as the father and reformer of the noble art of music’. The many younger musicians who benefited from his teaching and advice, as well as the court performers whom he directed, seem to have regarded him as a father-figure, or kindly uncle; he was well disposed towards them and helped them as he could, although there is little evidence that he thought of them as substitutes for the children he (apparently) never had.
When conditions permitted (i.e. in Vienna and London) Haydn enjoyed a rich emotional and intellectual life. In addition to his intimate relationships with Polzelli, Genzinger and Schroeter, he developed warm friendships with Mozart and Albrechtsberger; with Burney, Dr and Mrs Hunter and Therese Jansen; with an unnamed man to whom he wrote from Vienna in December 1792 (in English), playing the role of honorary godchild: ‘I rejoice very much that my handsome and good Mother Susana has changed her state … I wish from all my heart, that my Dear Mother may at my arrival next year present me a fine little Brother or Sister'; with ‘my dear’ Nancy Storace and ‘my very dearest’ Nanette Bayer (a ‘great genius’ of a pianist, employed by Count Apponyi) and many others. His observations in the London Notebooks reveal an active interest in every aspect of social life and culture, ‘high’ and ‘low’ alike. He was interested in literature, art and philosophy and gladly circulated and corresponded with intellectuals and freemasons, albeit without pretensions to being an intellectual himself.
Haydn's character was marked by a duality between earnestness and humour. F.S. Silverstolpe, who saw much of him during the composition of The Creation, reported:
I discovered in Haydn as it were two physiognomies. One was penetrating and serious, when he talked about anything sublime, and the mere word ‘sublime’ was enough to excite his feelings to visible animation. In the next moment this air of exaltation was chased away as fast as lightning by his usual mood, and he became jovial with a force that was visible in his features and even passed into drollery. The latter was his usual physiognomy; the former had to be induced.
The many anecdotes about Haydn's youthful propensity to practical joking, however implausible individually, must collectively reflect some reality. Griesinger found that ‘a guileless roguery, or what the British call humour, was one of Haydn's outstanding characteristics’. But he was also a devout Catholic: he inscribed most of his autographs ‘In nomine Domini’ at the head and ‘Laus Deo’ at the end, and composed major works in honour of the Virgin, including the Stabat mater, the Salve regina in G minor, and the Missa Cellensis and ‘Great Organ Mass’. His most important instrumental work of the 1780s was arguably the Seven Last Words. He identified personally with The Creation and the religious portions of The Seasons and came to think of the former in overtly moralistic terms, as he wrote in 1801:
The [story of the] Creation has always been considered the sublimest and most awe-inspiring image for mankind. To accompany this great work with appropriate music could certainly have no other result than to heighten these sacred emotions in the listener's heart, and to make him highly receptive to the goodness and omnipotence of the Creator.
Haydn's personality was more complex than has usually been thought. His marriage was unhappy, and he was often lonely and at times melancholy. In May 1790 he wrote to Mme Genzinger: ‘I beg Your Grace not to shy away from comforting me by your pleasant letters, for they cheer me up in my isolation, and are highly necessary for my heart, which is often very deeply hurt’. Nor was it only a question of his physical and social isolation at Eszterháza; from London he wrote to Polzelli of his ‘melanconia’ in much the same terms.
His modesty, genuine though it was, had distinct limits. He took pride in his works, notably including his vocal music; he wrote to Artaria in October 1781:
My lieder, through their variety, naturalness, and beautiful and grateful melodies, will perhaps surpass all others … Now something from Paris: Mr leGros … wrote me all sorts of nice things about my Stabat mater, which was given … to the greatest applause … They were surprised that I was so extraordinarily successful in vocal music; but I wasn't surprised at all, for they haven't heard anything yet. If they could only hear … my most recent opera La fedeltà premiata! I assure [you] that nothing comparable has yet been heard in Paris, and perhaps not even in Vienna.
Haydn prized his status as an original (see §7); he bluntly rejected the notion that Sammartini might have been an influence on his early string quartets, adding (to Griesinger) that he acknowledged only C.P.E. Bach as a model. He was sensitive to criticism: he resented north Germans' rejection of his stylistic mixture (which seemed to them a breach of decorum), was jealous of Joseph II's patronage of inferior composers such as Leopold Hofmann (whose ‘Gassenlieder’ in particular he intended to surpass), and railed against those who pointed out technical flaws such as parallel 5ths in his late music. He took pains to forestall potential criticism of the similar beginnings of the sonatas hXVI:36/ii and 39/i by printing a prefatory note asserting that he had done this deliberately, ‘in order to show different methods of realization’. After Mozart's death he willingly accepted the role of greatest living composer; in London he actively defended his ‘rank’ against Pleyel's challenge. Despite his grateful dependence on Swieten for librettos and patronage by the Associirten, behind Swieten's back he gibed that his symphonies were ‘as stiff as the man himself’ and ridiculed the libretto of The Seasons. His despair at no longer being able to compose after 1802 was doubtless fuelled in part by resentment at Beethoven's success in pushing forward into new domains of music – domains that he believed would have lain open to him if only his health had not failed.
Although Haydn often protested his devotion to the Esterházy princes, ‘in whose service I wish to live and die’ (1776), and praised Nicolaus for providing the conditions under which his art could develop, his attitude towards the court was never subservient and over time became increasingly ambivalent. He did not hesitate to assert his interests and those of his musicians against the court administration: these interventions were usually successful (including, for example, re-engaging Polzelli and her husband and keeping them on the payroll for ten years). The relationship between Nicolaus and Haydn was not merely that of prince and employee: their playing baryton trios together (Haydn presumably on the viola) was by definition intimate music-making, and according to Framery the composer had to restore the prince from attacks of depression (Haydn himself described this in March 1790, admittedly during Nicolaus's bereavement). After 1780 he became increasingly independent of the court both compositionally and financially, and he hated having to abandon the artistic and social pleasures of Vienna for distant Eszterháza. After Nicolaus's death he was de facto a free artist. In a letter of September 1791 to Mme Genzinger his ambivalence is palpable:
This little bit of freedom, how sweet it tastes! I had a good prince, but at times I was forced to be dependent on base souls. I often sighed for release; now I have it in some measure … Even though I am burdened with more work, the knowledge that I am not bound to service makes ample amends for all my toil. And yet, dear though this freedom is to me, I long to be in Prince Esterházy's service on my return, if only for the sake of my poor family. However, I doubt that this longing can be satisfied, in that my prince … absolutely demands my immediate return, which however I cannot comply with, owing to a new contract I have entered into here.
Indeed, London won out. Yet in 1795 he was glad to become Kapellmeister again – although only on condition of minimal duties.
As regards money, Haydn was so self-interested as to shock both certain high-minded contemporaries (Joseph Martin Kraus, Friedrich Rochlitz) and many later authorities. Whereas until 1749 he presumably suffered nothing worse than ordinary schoolboy privations, during his early freelance years he lived in poverty, an experience he was determined never to repeat. He always attempted to maximize his income, whether by negotiating the right to sell his music outside the Esterházy court, driving hard bargains with publishers or selling his works three and four times over; he regularly engaged in ‘sharp practice’ and occasionally in outright fraud. When crossed in business relations, he reacted angrily. At times his protestations of straitened circumstances were mendacious (as when denying Polzelli's requests for money), or perhaps self-deceptive. Yet Haydn was generous. He supported his brother Johann for decades and bequeathed substantial sums to relatives, servants and those who had supported him in his youth, and took pride in the large sums generated for charity by performances of his oratorios.
Haydn's appearance is known from various descriptions and from many paintings and busts. He was not handsome; he was ‘small in stature, but sturdily and strongly built. His forehead was broad and well modelled, his skin brownish, his eyes lively and fiery, his other features full and strongly marked, and his whole physiognomy and bearing bespoke prudence and a quiet gravity’ (Griesinger); but he also had an overlarge nose, exacerbated by his long-term polyp, and was pock-marked (Dies). Of the many contemporary images only a few avoid idealizing their subject. From about 1768 there is a portrait by Grundmann, the Esterházy court painter, showing the young and self-assertive Kapellmeister in uniform (fig.1). More conventional in both facial features and the pose at the keyboard are the various images based on a lost painting of uncertain date by Guttenbrunn (fig.4; Haydn's wife and Griesinger claimed that it was a good likeness) and the engraving by Mansfield (1781) published by Artaria. There is a good miniature from about 1788 (fig.7). From London we have formal portraits by Hoppner and Hardy, of which the former (fig.9) has the more personality; still more is conveyed in the drawing by George Dance (in two versions; fig.10), which Haydn claimed was the best likeness of himself. Several sculptures survive from the last Vienna years, including two busts by Grassi (fig.8; praised by Griesinger); there is also a deathmask, taken by Elssler.
Haydn, Joseph