, the most flattering that could well be made. The simplicity
and naturalness of Gellert's style were the very antithesis of the
pedantries and frigid formalities of the older school; and just as he
pioneered the way for the resuscitation of German poetry under Goethe
and Schiller, so Haydn may be said to have prepared the path for
Beethoven and the modern school.

Haydn and Mozart compared

Very likely it was this comparison of the magazine writer that suggested
Dittersdorf's remark to Joseph II in 1786, when the emperor requested
him to draw an analogy between Haydn's and Mozart's chamber music.
Dittersdorf shrewdly replied by asking the emperor in his turn to draw a
parallel between Gellert and Klopstock; whereupon Joseph made answer by
saying that both were great poets, but that Klopstock's works required
attentive study, while Gellert's beauties were open to the first glance.
The analogy, Dittersdorf tells us, "pleased the emperor very much." Its
point is, however, not very clear--that is to say, it is not very clear
whether the emperor meant to compare Klopstock with Haydn and Gellert
with Mozart or vice versa, and whether, again, he regarded it as more of
a merit that the poet and the composer should require study or be "open
to the first glance." Joseph was certainly friendly towards Mozart, but
by all accounts he had no great love for Haydn, to whose "tricks and
nonsense" he made frequent sneering reference.

The first noteworthy event of 1766 was the death of Werner, which took
place on March 5. It made no real difference to Haydn, who, as we have
seen, had been from the first, in effect, if not in name, chief of
the musical establishment; but it at least freed him from sundry petty
annoyances, and left him absolutely master of the musical situation.
Shortly after Werner's death, the entire musical establishment at
Eisenstadt was removed to the prince's new palace of Esterhaz, with
which Haydn was now to be connected for practically the whole of his
remaining professional career.

Esterhaz

A great deal has been written about Esterhaz, but it is not necessary
that we should occupy much space with a description of the castle and
its surroundings. The palace probably owed its inception to the prince's
visit to Paris in 1764. At any rate, it is in the French Renaissance
style, and there is some significance in the fact that a French
traveller who saw it about 1782 described it as having no place but
Versail