Haydn | Page 8

keys might be touched on, but without ever giving the ear the
satisfaction of feeling itself at rest in the first key again. That was only
done by the reintroduction of the first theme in the first key. The first

theme is played and leads on to the pause, after which the second theme
is given in the key of the first, so that after a few bars of coda, always
in the same key, the movement terminates in a perfectly satisfactory
manner. This is a crude description in which much is left out, but it will
serve to enable the reader to understand how passages widely different
in character are bound together into a coherent whole by the composer
continuously leading the ear to expect something--that something being
the original key-chord, and, while offering many things, only finally
satisfying the ear's craving when the movement is coming to a finish. If
the second theme, let us say, were in the same key as the first, it would
sound like the beginning of a new movement, and at once we should
have the continuity broken. As a passage between two passages in the
original key it sounds perfectly in its place, and, no matter how
contrasted in character, is a kind of continuation of the first passage. At
the same time it creates a strong desire, that must be restrained till the
time comes, for what follows. We listen to the second theme and to the
"working-out" section, knowing we are far from home, but perfectly
aware that we shall get there, and that a certain feeling of suspense will
be relieved. Thus the music is like a great arch that supports itself. The
unity got in the fugue by continuous motion is got here by one key
perpetually leading the ear to ask for another key. It seems simplicity
itself; its underlying idea--that of making the ear always expect
something, and gratifying it by bits, and only fully towards the close of
the movement--is that by which unity is combined with variety in
modern music, though we have long since got rid of the "legitimate"
series of keys.
The grouping of the movements need not detain us long. Many
groupings had been tried; but it seems natural to open with an
allegro--preceded or not preceded by a few bars of slow
introduction--to follow this with a slow movement of some sort; then to
insert or not to insert a movement of medium rapidity as a change from
the bustle of the first and the quiet of the second; and finally to end
with a merry dancing movement. This, again, is in the merest outline
the plan adopted by Haydn. Whether he used three or four movements,
the principle was the same--a quick beginning, a slow middle, and a
quick ending; afterwards, each movement grew longer, but the way in

which he lengthened them can better be treated later when we come to
his bigger works.
From the first he used counterpoint, canon, imitation, and all the
devices of the contrapuntal style. But the difference between his newer
style and that of Wagenseil and the rest is that he neither uses
counterpoint of any sort nor chord figures to make up the true
substance of the music, but merely as devices to help him in
maintaining a continuous flow of melody. That melody, as has already
been said, might be in the top or bottom part, or one of the middle parts;
but though it may, and, indeed, always did pause at times, as the
melody of a song pauses at the end of each line, it is unbroken from
beginning to end. The first part of a movement might be compared to
the first line of a song: there is a pause, but we expect and get the
second line; there is another pause, and we get a line which is
analogous to the "working-out" section, and the last line, ending in the
original key if not on the same note, corresponds to the final section of
the movement, after which we expect nothing more, the ear being quite
satisfied.
Werner, his musical chief in his next station, had the sense to see that
this continuous melody was the thing aimed at, and because Haydn
placed counterpoint in a subsidiary condition he called him a
"charlatan." Poor man, had his sense pierced a little deeper! For Haydn
was--after Bach and Handel and Mozart--one of the finest masters of
counterpoint who have lived. When the time came to write fugues he
could write them with a certain degree of power. But his aim was not
writing fugues any more than an architect's aim is painting in
water-colours. Water-colours are very useful to architects, and they
make use of them; but because they