The Project Gutenberg eBook, Haydn, by John F. Runciman

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Title: Haydn

Author: John F. Runciman

Release Date: September 20, 2004 [eBook #13504]

Language: English

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HAYDN

by

JOHN F. RUNCIMAN

Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians

LONDON

1908

CONTENTS

I. JOSEPH HAYDN
II. 1732-1761
III. THE EARLY MUSIC
IV. 1761-1790
V. MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD
VI. 1790-1795
VII. THE GREAT SYMPHONIES
VIII. 1795-1809
IX. SUMMING UP
HAYDN'S PRINCIPAL COMPOSITIONS
BOOKS ABOUT HAYDN

CHAPTER I

JOSEPH HAYDN

It is, as a rule, inexpedient to begin a book with the peroration.
Children are spared the physic of the moral till they have sucked in the
sweetness of the tale. Adults may draw from a book what of good there is
in it, and close it before reaching the chapter usually devoted to fine
writing. But the case of Haydn is extraordinary. One can only sustain
interest in a biography of the man by an ever-present sense that he is
scarcely to be written about. All an author can do is, in few or many
words, to put a conundrum to the reader--a conundrum that cannot even be
stated in exciting terms. This apparition and wonder-worker of the
eighteenth century, Franz Joseph Haydn, is compact of paradoxes and
contradictions. Born a peasant, and remaining in thought and speech a
peasant all his days, he became the friend of princes, dukes, and,
generally speaking, very high society indeed--and this in days when
class distinctions had to be observed. He effected a revolution in
music, and revolutionists must have daring; and save in music he showed
no sign of unusual daring. His shaping and han