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Less happy than Bach in his married life
was Franz Josef Haydn. After a
boyhood of poverty and struggles, he obtained a position as
Kapellmeister to a Bohemian nobleman, Count Morzin. This post was none
too lucrative, however, for it brought the composer only about one
hundred dollars a year, while his teaching could not have provided him
with much extra wealth, and his compositions brought him nothing. Yet
his financial troubles did not deter him from seeking those of
matrimony, in spite of the fact that Count Morzin never kept married
men
in his service. According to the poet Campbell, marriage looks like
madness in nine cases out of ten; and Haydn's venture was certainly no
exception.
The one upon whom the composer's
affections lighted was the younger
daughter of a barber named Keller. He had met her while a choir-boy in
the Church of St. Stephen, at Vienna, and she had afterward become one
of his pupils. For some unexplained reason,—let us hope it was not
because of the young composer's love,—she took to the veil, and
renounced the wickedness and the marriages of the world. The barber,
possibly hoping to lighten the suitor's disappointment, and very
probably wishing to have both daughters off his hands, promptly
suggested to the young lover that he take
the elder sister instead.
Apparently realizing that marriage at best is but a lottery, Haydn
accepted the proposition.
The wedding took place at St. Stephen's,
on November 26, 1760. Whether
Count Morzin would have made an exception in Haydn's case, and retained
him in spite of this event, there is no means of telling, for that
nobleman met with financial reverses, and was forced to give up his
musical establishment. Fortunately for the young genius, some of his
works had been heard and admired by the Prince Paul Esterhazy, who
showed his musical discernment by taking Haydn into his service and
becoming a lifelong patron of the composer.
There was little real affection between
Haydn and his wife at the start
of their life journey together. He declared, however, that he really
began to have some feeling for her, and would have come to entertain
still warmer sentiments toward her if she had behaved at all
reasonably.
But unfortunately, she did not seem to be capable of behaving
reasonably. The wives of great men are usually proud of the attainments
of their husbands, and take no pains to conceal this fact. But the
barber's daughter of Vienna was totally lacking in any real
appreciation
of her gifted consort. As Haydn himself observed once, it would have
made no difference if he had been a
shoemaker instead of an artist. She
used his manuscript scores as curl-papers and underlays for the family
pastry; she made continual use of the conjugal privilege of going
through his pockets and abstracting the cash; and once, when he was in
London, her calm selfishness rose to the point of asking him to buy a
certain house, which she admired, so that she might have a home
provided
for her widowhood.
Through all his troubles, Haydn
preserved a dignified silence about his
domestic unhappiness, and in his letters it is mentioned only twice.
For
a long time he bore the trials patiently, but at length was forced to
give up the household and live apart from his domestic tormentor. The
woman who had hoped for a permanent home in her widowhood ended her
lonely existence in 1800, nine years before the close of her husband's
career.
With these facts in view, it is not
surprising to find that Haydn at
times sought elsewhere the consolation he was denied at home. He was
fond of feminine companions, especially when they were well endowed
with
personal attractions. He must have possessed ingratiating manners, for
he certainly could not boast of great personal attractions, and he
himself admitted that his fair admirers were, "At any rate, not tempted
by his beauty." His natural tenderness
showed itself in a passionate
fondness for children,—a blessing denied to his own home.
One of his most violent friendships had
for its object a young Italian
singer of nineteen, Luigia Polzelli. Apparently she was not happy with
her husband, and a bond of mutual sympathy drew the composer to her.
After the death of her husband, she persuaded Haydn to sign a promise
to
marry her if his wife should die, but the composer afterward repudiated
the agreement, very likely not wishing to repeat his first matrimonial
blunder.
Another romance is found in the
love-letters sent to the composer by a
charming London widow named Schroeter. Without overstepping the bounds
of propriety, he was able to draw some profit from this episode, for he
gave lessons to his fair admirer, and allowed her to do manuscript
copying for him. Apparently the friendship was more of her seeking than
of his own, as her letters to him bear witness. These are copied neatly
in one of his note-books, along with various amusing "Anectods," a
description of a London fog, "thick enough to be spread on bread," and
an excellent receipt for making the Prince of Wales's punch.
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