influence may be traced in some of his clavier
music—in his gavottes and bourrées. Be
these things as they may, though many of the
works of Bach (the more fancifully inventive
ones especially) never got hold of the public
during his time, it is not too much to predicate
that they were known to some of the best men
in Germany, and that, wherever they were
known, they quickened life and enterprise.

Eighteen years before Sebastian Bach died,
there was born, in 1738, on the borders of
Germany and Hungary, one of the completest
musicians and men of genius that ever existed;
whose influence on the direction of German
music was perhaps wider—certainly more
instantaneous—than that of the great organist.
This was Joseph Haydn. A discriminating life
of this remarkable man is eminently wanted,
those by Framery, and Breton, and Carpani
not filling the want. A more noticeable example
of fertility without carelessness, of fancy without
extravagance or conceit, of science without
pedantry, of success acknowledged by a
ceaseless resolution to make progress, does not
exist in the annals of art. Eight hundred
owned works were produced during his life of
seventy-seven years; one of these works,
including one hundred and fifty pieces for the
baryton! thrown off as a part of his daily
service, while he was Prince Esterhazy's retainer.
Haydn mastered every style, he appropriated
every discovery; he wrought incessantly, one
might say mechanically, did not the charming
freshness of his first ideas forbid the use of the
word. Beginning modestly (though his earliest
works are beautiful for their clearness and
symmetry), he advanced till the end of life in width
of scale, vigour of grasp, and freedom of style
year by year, without sacrifice of his excellent
originality. His "Creation," the work of two
years, after he was sixty, was the fruit of a visit
to England, produced in emulation of Handel.
The last of his eighty-three stringed quartets,
may be said to have been prompted by the
advance which Mozart had made in that style of
composition. His melodies were, till his death,
fresh, his harmonies courageous, though not
equalling in daring those of Sebastian Bach, his
contrivances were at once natural and
unexpected. And thus the great body of his music can
only be said to be obsolete, in so much as
simplicity is obsolete. As compared with the
music of every other German composer,
Beethoven excepted, it is astonishingly clear of
mannerism.

What Haydn may be said to have done
directly for German opera is easily told. Of
the eleven German operas he wrote (some for
the Prince Esterhazy's puppet theatre) we know
nothing. There was incidental music, too, for
the drama "Götz von Berlichingen," Goethe's
early work, which, it may be remembered, was to
Sir Walter Scott's genius what the spark is to
the tinder. One would gladly know what this
was like. Then there were twelve Italian operas,
principally, to judge from their titles, of mixed
character, though including an "Armida," an
"Acis and Galatea," an "Orlando Paladino,"
and an "Orfeo" begun for London, not
completed. Of all this mass of music, one song,
"II pensier," from "Orfeo," survives. The
bulk of Haydn's compositions do not give indications
of that power over intense emotion
demanded from one who is to treat serious
themes for the stage. And yet his Cantata
"Ariadne in Naxos"—his Spirit Song to the
English words of that dashing lady but happy
writer for music, Mrs. John Hunter,—and,
most of all, his admirable setting of
Shakespeare's "She never told her love,"—prove that
he could have been as much at ease in the depths,
or among the stormy waves, or on the melancholy
shore, as in calm water and sunshine, had
not the last better suited as themes his cheerful
equable nature. One great requisite for vocal
composition Haydn possessed in perfection. He
was a singer; and had been renowned, when a
choir boy, for the beauty of his voice.

Only one, however, of the facts and
characteristics here assembled, may be said to have
had anything to do with the special existence
into which German opera began to mould itself
during the last years of Haydn's life. This was
his mastery over instrumental form and structure.
With more real cheerfulness, he had less quaintness
in his composition than Sebastian Bach—
was therefore less urged to try new conclusions
without any reference to their practicability
or effect. It may be, that owing to the
superior opportunities afforded him of hearing
his music played (since a household band was at
his disposition in the Esterhazy establishment), he
approached that proportion in balance of forces,
and in grouping the stringed and wind instruments,
which was of infinitely greater value as
a discovery than the most intricate assemblage of
heterogeneous ingredients, to each of which was
allowed its independent action, such as makes so
many of Bach's works curiosities of combination.
In brief, Haydn brought the orchestra
many steps nearer its modern state and supremacy
than it had ever been before;—making it
an organ of separate expression, not merely of
formal parade or subservient accompaniment;
an engine for the production of effects as
fascinating as they were new. Germany thenceforward
shot ahead of Italy and France.

              NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
                 "Pickwick,"  "Copperfield," &c.

           Now publishing, PART XV., price 1s., of
                      OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
                     BY CHARLES DICKENS.

              IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
         With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
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