Haydn | Page 9

in
composition from Reutter, who was, moreover, harsh and cruel and
unfeeling, laughing at his pupil's groping attempts, and chastising him
on the slightest pretext. It has been hinted that the Capellmeister was
jealous of his young charge--that he was "afraid of finding a rival in the
pupil." But this is highly improbable. Haydn had not as yet shown any
unusual gifts likely to excite the envy of his superior. There is more

probability in the other suggestion that Reutter was piqued at not
having been allowed by Haydn's father to perpetuate the boy's fine
voice by the ancient method of emasculation. The point, in any case, is
not of very much importance. It is sufficient to observe that Reutter's
name survives mainly in virtue of the fact that he tempted Haydn to
Vienna with the promise of special instruction, and gave him
practically nothing of that, but a great deal of ill-usage.
Lessons at St Stephen's
Haydn was supposed to have lessons from two undistinguished
professors named Gegenbauer and Finsterbusch. But it all amounted to
very little. There was the regular drilling for the church services, to be
sure: solfeggi and psalms, psalms and solfeggi--always apt to
degenerate, under a pedant, into the dreariest of mechanical routine.
How many a sweet-voiced chorister, even in our own days, reaches
manhood with a love for music? It needs music in his soul. Haydn's
soul withstood the numbing influence of pedantry. He realized that it
lay with himself to develop and nurture the powers within his breast of
which he was conscious. "The talent was in me," he remarked, "and by
dint of hard work I managed to get on." Shortly before his death, when
he happened to be in Vienna for some church festival, he had an
opportunity of speaking to the choir-boys of that time. "I was once a
singing boy," he said. "Reutter brought me from Hainburg to Vienna. I
was industrious when my companions were at play. I used to take my
little clavier under my arm, and go off to practice undisturbed. When I
sang a solo, the baker near St Stephen's yonder always gave me a cake
as a present. Be good and industrious, and serve God continually."
A Sixteen-Part Mass!
It is pathetic to think of the boy assiduously scratching innumerable
notes on scraps of music paper, striving with yet imperfect knowledge
to express himself, and hoping that by some miracle of inspiration
something like music might come out of it. "I thought it must be all
right if the paper was nice and full," he said. He even went the length of
trying to write a mass in sixteen parts--an effort which Reutter
rewarded with a shrug and a sneer, and the sarcastic suggestion that for

the present two parts might be deemed sufficient, and that he had better
perfect his copying of music before trying to compose it. But Haydn
was not to be snubbed and snuffed out in this way. He appealed to his
father for money to buy some theory books. There was not too much
money at Rohrau, we may be sure, for the family was always
increasing, and petty economies were necessary. But the wheelwright
managed to send the boy six florins, and that sum was immediately
expended on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum and Mattheson's
Volkommener Capellmeister--heavy, dry treatises both, which have
long since gone to the musical antiquary's top shelf among the dust and
the cobwebs. These "dull and verbose dampers to enthusiasm" Haydn
made his constant companions, in default of a living instructor, and,
like Longfellow's "great men," toiled upwards in the night, while less
industrious mortals snored.
Juvenile Escapades
Meanwhile his native exuberance and cheerfulness of soul were
irrepressible. Several stories are told of the schoolboy escapades he
enjoyed with his fellow choristers. One will suffice here. He used to
boast that he had sung with success at Court as well as in St Stephen's.
This meant that he had made one of the choir when visits were paid to
the Palace of Schonbrunn, where the Empress Maria and her Court
resided. On the occasion of one of these visits the palace was in the
hands of the builders, and the scaffolding presented the usual
temptation to the youngsters. "The empress," to quote Pohl, "had
caught them climbing it many a time, but her threats and prohibitions
had no effect. One day when Haydn was balancing himself aloft, far
above his schoolfellows, the empress saw him from the windows, and
requested her Hofcompositor to take care that 'that fair-headed
blockhead,' the ringleader of them all, got 'einen recenten Schilling'
(slang for 'a good hiding')." The command was only too willingly
obeyed by the obsequious Reutter, who by this time had been ennobled,
and rejoiced in the addition of