(IV) Independence, 1779–90.

Nevertheless, Haydn was able to continue his career as an instrumental composer. In contrast to London, Paris and elsewhere, where unauthorized editions of his music had been appearing steadily since 1764, there was no music publishing industry to speak of in the Habsburg realm; most music circulated in manuscript copies. This situation changed in 1778, when Artaria & Co., hitherto primarily art dealers and mapmakers, expanded into music printing; other firms soon followed. Artaria and Haydn must have made contact in 1779 (it is not known who took the initiative); their first publication was a set of six keyboard sonatas, hXVI:35–9, 20 (delivered in winter 1779–80, published in April 1780), dedicated to the virtuoso sisters Katharina and Marianna von Auenbrugger. Dozens of Viennese publications of Haydn's music followed over the next decade. This would not have been possible on the terms of his 1761 contract, which forbade him from selling music on his own or composing for anyone else without permission. However, he signed a new contract on New Year's Day 1779, in which these prohibitions were omitted; the conjunction with Artaria's founding in 1778 and Haydn's publication of music with them beginning in 1779–80 cannot be coincidental. The prince was losing interest in instrumental music; Haydn must have persuaded him to strike a compromise, whereby he remained in residence at court, continued in charge of the opera and drew his full salary, but was granted compositional independence in other respects, including the income from sales of his music. In addition, he began to market his music in other countries: in England beginning in 1781 with Forster, to whom he sold more music than to anyone except Artaria; in France beginning in 1783, selling Symphonies nos.76–8 (composed 1782) to Boyer and offering nos.79–81 (1783–4) to Naderman. (To be sure, certain works not composed for the court – for example, the ‘Paris’ Symphonies – were still performed, or at any rate tried out, there before being sent into the world, and others, such as the piano sonatas hXVI:40–42, were dedicated to members of the princely family.)

Haydn soon learnt to maximize his income by selling a given work in several countries, accepting a separate fee for each. Except in Vienna and London he often worked through a middleman. These activities were in many respects unregulated (modern copyright law being in its infancy); unauthorized ‘double copying’ was a constant danger, and everyone attempted to maximize his advantage – including Haydn, whose tactics were often unscrupulous, to say the least. He often earned his ‘little extra’ by selling manuscript copies of new works to private individuals; such ‘subscription’ copies still carried a certain prestige. An example is offered by his famous letters offering the string quartets op.33, composed in summer and autumn 1781 and sold to Artaria by prior arrangement. On 3 December he wrote to between ten and 20 noble and well-to-do music lovers, including the Swiss intellectual Johann Caspar Lavater:

I love and happily read your works … Since I know that in Zürich and Winterthur there are many gentlemen amateurs and great connoisseurs and patrons of music, I cannot conceal from you the fact that I am issuing a work consisting of 6 Quartets for two violins, viola and violoncello concertante, by subscription for the price of six ducats; they are of a new and entirely special kind, for I haven't written any for ten years … Subscribers who live abroad will receive them before I issue the works here …

However, Artaria (who presumably knew nothing of these activities) announced the forthcoming publication of the quartets on 29 December at a price of 4 gulden (6 ducats equalled approximately 25 gulden). Haydn was furious:

It was with astonishment that I read … that you intend to publish my quartets in four weeks … Such a proceeding places me in a most dishonourable position and is very damaging; it is a most extortionate step on your part … Mr Hummel [the publisher] also wanted to be a subscriber, but I did not want to behave so shabbily, and I did not send them to Berlin solely out of regard for our friendship and further transactions; by God! you owe me more than 50 ducats, since I have not yet satisfied many of the subscribers, and cannot possibly send copies to those living abroad; this step must cause the cessation of further transactions between us.

In fact, it did not come to a rupture: Artaria delayed publication until April, and Haydn apparently sold the quartets to Hummel after all; both parties now better understood the ground rules (‘the next time’, wrote Haydn later, ‘we shall both be more prudent’). A loss of 50 ducats implies about eight unsold copies; in 1784 Haydn claimed to Artaria that he had ‘always received more than 100 ducats through subscriptions to my quartets’. Even as his publications increased, Haydn continued to market manuscript copies, especially in genres that were not ordinarily published (such as sacred vocal music), and to sell all sorts of music in places where there was still no music publishing industry, notably Spain. These were hardly ever new works. To be sure, he wrote to Artaria in 1784: ‘The quartets I'm working on just now … are very small and with only three movements; they are destined for Spain’, but no trace of such works survives, unless it be the small-scale (but four-movement) single quartet op.42 (1785), which, however, appears to have been composed for a periodical series published by Hoffmeister.

Another risk arose from the circumstance that many publishers sold works from their own catalogues to business partners in other markets. Forster naturally assumed he had exclusive rights in England to the works Haydn had sold him. However, when Artaria sold some of the same works to Longman & Broderip, two ostensibly authorized editions were suddenly in direct competition. To make matters worse, among the works Haydn sold Forster was a set of piano trios hXV:3–5, the first two of which were almost certainly compositions of his former pupil Pleyel. Later, Pleyel sold them to Longman & Broderip; when the latter edition appeared, Forster embarked on a lawsuit with Longman, in which Haydn became entangled when he went to England; it was settled out of court. Despite such difficulties, his methods of exploiting multiple markets became a model for the next two generations of composers; he ‘taught’ it to Beethoven (who learnt his lesson well, including the unscrupulous aspects), and it was still used by Mendelssohn and Chopin. He was also adept at ‘marketing’. He described Symphonies nos.76–8 as ‘beautiful, impressive and above all not very long symphonies … and in particular everything very easy’, and his first authorized Viennese publication of orchestral music (late 1782) was devoted, not to symphonies, but to the ‘easier’ genre of the overture.

For all these reasons Haydn's compositional activity underwent a radical change in the 1780s. His music, which been well known and much praised since the mid-1760s, was now genuinely popular: he could scarcely keep up with the demand. He concentrated on what was salable: instrumental works that would appeal to both amateurs and connoisseurs, opera excerpts and lieder. As long as his works had been destined for the court or published without his participation, he had had little need to follow the ‘opus’ principle; now he adopted it for almost all his publications. Even the string quartet was subject to another pause of six years (and the example of Mozart's quartets dedicated to him) before he composed three sets in rapid succession during 1787–90: op.50 (Artaria; dedicated to the King of Prussia), op.54/55 (a single set of six, sold to Johann Tost, formerly a violinist at court, who resold them to various publishers) and op.64. The English publisher John Bland visited him at Eszterháza in November 1789, when Haydn promised him a new quartet in return for a new razor (Haydn thanked him for the razors in April 1790). However, a ‘new’ quartet could not have been the one now known as the ‘Razor’ (op.55 no.2, composed in 1788 and never published by Bland); it is more likely that the story has to do with op.64 (1790), which Bland did publish in an authorized edition.

A genre that Haydn had not cultivated since the mid-1760s but which now again became important was the piano trio, with 13 works in the 1780s. hXV:5 (1784) and 9–10 (1785) were sold to Forster; nos.6–8 (1784–5) and 11–13 (1788–9) to Artaria, as was no.14 (1789–90). Nos.15–17 (1790) were composed for Bland; they specify a flute rather than a violin as the melody instrument (no.17: flute or violin). The piano sonatas nos.33, 34 and 43 were assembled post facto and published in 1783; by contrast, nos.40–42 are an ‘opus’ (published 1784; dedicated to Marie Hermenegild, wife of the later Prince Nicolaus II). Two important single sonatas date from 1789–90: hXVI:48 in C, composed for Breitkopf in Leipzig, and hXVI:49 in E , for Maria Anna von Genzinger; the Capriccio hXVII:4, composed ‘in a launige hour’ in 1789, is equally fine. Another genre made newly popular through publication was the lied; Haydn composed 24 in 1781–4 (hXXVIa:1–24) and published them with Artaria in two sets of 12.

Even in the early 1780s Haydn was no mere ‘entertainer’. But a newly serious orientation was instigated by his receipt in about 1784–5 of two prestigious commissions from abroad, both executed in 1785–6. Six symphonies were commissioned by Count d'Ogny for performance in Paris by the Concert de la Loge Olympique (a masonic organization); the fee was later reported to have been 25 louis d'or for each symphony (Mozart had been paid only 5 for the Paris Symphony k297/300a) and Haydn received also 5 louis d’or from Imbault for the publication rights. The Concert employed a much larger orchestra than any for which he had composed symphonies; whether for this reason or simply owing to the notion of ‘Paris’, they are the grandest he had yet written. They were immensely popular; Marie Antoinette supposedly preferred no.85 in B , whence its nickname ‘La reine’; compare ‘L'ours’ (no.82) and ‘La poule’ (no.83). Their success led to additional symphonies: Haydn sold nos.88–9 (1787) to Tost, who resold them in Paris and elsewhere, and d'Ogny commissioned nos.90–92 (1788–9).

The other commission was a highly unusual one from Cádiz, for a series of orchestral pieces on the last words of Christ, to be performed in a darkened church as a kind of Passion during Holy Week, presumably on Good Friday. Haydn described them to Forster as

purely instrumental music divided into seven Sonatas, each Sonata lasting seven or eight minutes, together with an opening Introduction and concluding with a Terremoto or Earthquake. These Sonatas are composed on, and appropriate to, the Words that Christ our Saviour spoke on the Cross. … Each Sonata, or rather each setting of the text, is expressed only by instrumental music, but in such a way that it creates the most profound impression on even the most inexperienced listener.

Griesinger commented: ‘Haydn often stated that this work was one of his most successful’. It was widely performed and favourably received, not least owing to its avoidance of what were taken to be the chief dangers of tone-painting, excessive literalness and triviality. Haydn also sold the Seven Last Words in arrangements, one for string quartet and one for keyboard.

A distinctly lighter series of commissions came from King Ferdinando IV of Naples. Like Prince Esterházy, he had become proficient on an out-of-the-way instrument: the lira organizzata, a sort of grown-up hurdy-gurdy. He commissioned concertos and ‘notturnos’ for two lire organizzate from various composers; Haydn supplied five or six concertos (hVIIh, 1786–7) and eight notturnos (hII:25–32, 1789–90).

Haydn's stays in Vienna were still restricted to one or two months each winter and occasional brief visits during Lent. He increasingly valued the imperial capital's artistic and intellectual life, which was flourishing under Joseph II, and chafed at having to spend so much time in the ‘wasteland’ (Einöde) of Eszterháza. He acquired many friends and patrons, including Baron Gottfried van Swieten (whom he had met in 1775), Councillor Franz Sales von Greiner (1730–98; father of the later Caroline Pichler), who presided over Vienna's leading literary salon and supplied Haydn with lieder texts, Anton Liebe von Kreutzner, who in 1781–2 commissioned the Mariazellermesse and to whose daughter Haydn dedicated his lieder published in 1781, Councillor Franz Bernhard von Keess, who held regular concerts of orchestral music and made the first systematic attempt to collect all of Haydn's symphonies, and Michael Puchberg (Mozart's patron). Their orientation, reflecting that of the emperor, was enlightened-conservative: they were interested in literature, philosophy and education and largely rejected dogmatism, yet retained a traditional and Catholic outlook – all traits that Haydn shared. The majority were freemasons; Nicolaus himself was Master of Ceremonies at one Viennese lodge, and it was most probably he or others in this circle who induced Haydn to apply for membership in the order. Haydn did so on 29 December 1784 and was inducted into the lodge ‘Zur wahren Eintracht’ on 11 February 1785; however, there are no further records of his participation, and (despite one further letter) it appears that freemasonry was of no particular significance to him.

Haydn's visits to Vienna offered many opportunities for performances of his music. The string quartets op.33 are still sometimes called the ‘Russian’ quartets, owing to a dedication on a late edition that reflects a performance given on Christmas Day 1781 for Grand Duke Paul of Russia (later Tsar Paul I) and his music-loving consort. Regarding his lieder, Haydn told Artaria: ‘I will sing them myself, in the best houses. A master must see to his rights by his presence and by correct performance’. In February 1779 the Tonkünstler-Societät had invited Haydn to join, but attached conditions not to his liking; he gruffly refused. In March 1784, however, he produced Il ritorno di Tobia for them in a revised version. The ‘tightness’ of the Viennese performing scene is evident from the fact that among the five soloists were four who had taken part (or would do so) in Mozart opera premières:  Anna: Nancy Storace (Figaro, Susanna)  Raffaelle: Catarina Cavalieri (Entführung, Konstanze)  Tobia: Valentin Adamberger (Entführung, Belmonte)  Tobit: Stefano Mandini (Figaro, Count Almaviva)Haydn and Storace became warm friends; he later composed a cantata ‘for the voice of my dear Storace’ (possibly Miseri noi, hXXIVa:7). In January 1787 three of the ‘Paris’ symphonies were performed, and in March the Seven Last Words at the Palais Auersperg; both were unpublished novelties at the time.

The friendship between Haydn and Mozart also developed in Vienna. It is believed that they first met in 1783–4, at a performance such as that of Tobia just described, one of Mozart's ‘academies’, or at a quartet party: Michael Kelly's (late and perhaps untrustworthy) reminiscence of Stephen Storace's quartet comprising Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart and Vanhal is set in 1784 (Kelly later visited Haydn at the Esterházy court). Mozart performed his six new quartets for ‘my dear friend Haydn and other good friends’ on 15 January 1785, and the last three again on 12 February; the latter occasioned Haydn's famous remark to Leopold Mozart that Wolfgang was the greatest composer he knew, ‘either by name or reputation’. And Mozart's dedicatory letter in Artaria's edition of the quartets (September 1785) is headed: ‘To my dear friend Haydn’. In the winter of 1789–90 he invited Haydn to rehearsals of Così fan tutte, and Haydn organized a quartet party in which Mozart's participation can be inferred.

The nature of their relationship has been much discussed. Many writers have romanticized it, beginning with Griesinger's and Dies's sentimental accounts of their tearful farewell in December 1790 on Haydn's departure for London (including Haydn's alleged comment, ‘My language is understood in the entire world’). Others are sceptical, noting that the surviving documentation derives solely from two winters, 1784–5 and 1789–90, and that Mozart's dedicatory letter may protest his friendship a little too much. But there is no doubt of their mutual admiration as composers: each acknowledged the other as his only peer and as the only meaningful influence on his own music in the 1780s. Mozart's dedication of quartets to Haydn – a mere composer rather than a rich or noble patron – was unusual (although cynics note that he might have attempted to recruit the latter, but failed), and Griesinger relates an anecdote according to which he defended Haydn against a stupid criticism by Kozeluch: ‘neither you nor I would have hit on that idea’. But Haydn's expressions of admiration went further. In a famous (albeit unauthenticated) letter of 1787 to the impresario Franz Rott in Prague, he admitted that he feared comparison with ‘the great Mozart’, at least on the stage:

If only I could impress Mozart's inimitable works on the soul of every friend of music, and the souls of high personages in particular, as deeply, with the same musical understanding and with the same deep feeling, as I understand and feel them, the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel.

In early 1792 he wrote to Puchberg: ‘I was quite beside myself for some time over [Mozart's] death and could not believe that Providence would transport so irreplaceable a man to the other world’, adding that he had offered to teach Mozart's son Karl without fee (something he did not do lightly). ‘I have often been flattered by my friends with having some genius’, he said in Burney's hearing, ‘but he was much my superior’. It is remarkable that his feelings were apparently marked neither by jealousy nor a compromise of his musical self-confidence, except possibly regarding opera; they had no effect on his productivity.

In any case it was a friend of a different sort whom Haydn most cherished around 1790: Maria Anna von Genzinger (1750–93), the wife of an important physician (whose clients included Nicolaus Esterházy) and a talented amateur pianist. In June 1789 she sent Haydn her piano arrangement of the slow movement of an unidentified composition; he responded with praise, and the relationship rapidly became intense, although as far as can be told it remained platonic. Haydn's letters to Mme Genzinger (fig.5) are his most fervent and intimate; that of 9 February 1790, following his sudden return from Vienna to Eszterháza, is at once poignant and amusing:

Here I sit in my wilderness – forsaken – like a poor waif – almost without human society – sad – full of the memories of past glorious days – yes! past, alas! – and who knows if those days will return again? Those wonderful parties? – where the whole circle is one heart, one soul – all the beautiful musical evenings? … For three days I didn't know if I was Kapellmeister or Kapell-servant. Nothing could console me, my whole house was in confusion, my pianoforte, which I usually love, was perverse and disobedient … I could sleep only a little, even my dreams persecuted me; and then, just when I was happily dreaming that I was listening to Le nozze di Figaro, the horrible North wind woke me and almost blew my nightcap off my head … Alas! alas! I thought to myself as I was eating here, instead of that delicious slice of beef, a chunk of a 50-year-old cow … Here in Eszterháza no one asks me: ‘Would you like some chocolate, with milk or without? … What may I offer you, my dear Haydn, would you like a vanilla or a strawberry ice?’

But, as always, he soon recovered; the letter continues: ‘I am gradually getting used to country life, and yesterday I composed [studierte] for the first time, and indeed quite Haydnish’. Later that year he completed a sonata (hXVI:49) for Mme Genzinger, in the course of which he also advised her on the purchase of a new fortepiano; earlier he had advised her daughter Josepha about her performances of his cantata Arianna a Naxos (hXXVIb:2), perhaps composed in 1789 for the Venetian singer Bianca Sacchetti.

But the year 1790 was to prove even more disruptive than Haydn could have suspected in early February. Joseph II died on 20 February, throwing Vienna into mourning; five days later, Nicolaus Esterházy's wife died (Haydn had his hands full keeping him from succumbing to depression), followed on 28 September by the prince himself. Anton, his son and successor, immediately dissolved the musical and theatrical establishment, although Haydn was kept on at a reduced salary without official duties; he also received 1000 gulden a year from Nicolaus's estate. He at once moved to Vienna, taking rooms with a friend, J.N. Hamberger. He declined an offer to become Kapellmeister for Prince Grassalkovics (Nicolaus's son-in-law, resident in Pressburg), and made it clear to King Ferdinando that he would not fulfil any vague promises he might have made to travel to Naples. Whatever his intentions were, they were soon overtaken by events.

Haydn, Joseph