Walking With Giants (3) Papa Haydn

The Esterházy Palace

The bus drew to a stop and the driver stood, turned and looked down the bus at us and, with a smile, pointed and called out to us “Schloss  Esterházy, Schloss  Esterházy!" For just over an hour we had journeyed  through the lovely Austrian countryside, passing through picturesque villages  and watching lightning flash across the horizon as a thunderstorm crashed above and torrential rain fell from the sky – then, as the storm cleared and the sun came out, we at last passed the sign “Eisenstadt” on the edge of the town. Unsure where we should leave the bus we looked anxiously for some guidance. We need not have worried, the driver had remembered our enquiry an hour before as we had climbed onto his bus: “Is this the bus to the Esterházy Palace at Eisenstadt?” Pat had asked in halting German?  We grabbed our bags and thanking the driver, who was still smiling and pointing across the road at a large entrance gate, we got off his bus, and stood in the now brilliant mid morning sunshine, our destination reached.

Coffee & a small slice of Sachertorte to keep us going!

Early that morning we had navigated the Viennese underground and found our way to the Sud Tyrol Bus Bahnhof to take the local bus from Vienna to visit this place. In a way, to visit Eisenstadt  was the principal object of our musical pilgrimage down the Danube taking in the musical towns – Salzburg, Vienna and the rest  (see previous two blogs). Our holiday had been planned around taking the opportunity of going to places that are linked with composers and music that we love and this was our last day before returning to the UK. I had spent much time prior to our trip researching how we could get to Eisenstadt and what there was to see when we got there. Fortunately it all came in useful; the marvels of Google and the internet serving us well and with the help of that friendly bus driver we had arrived at our destination. Little did we know as we stood by the bus stop that we had come to such a wonderful place - this was a place and a day trip that would always stay with us, a real highlight of not only this holiday but of all holidays.

For those not of a musical inclination Eisenstadt may be an unknown. Indeed it is not as famous as Mozart’s Salzburg or the Strauss family’s Vienna, it doesn’t have the name of JS Bach or Beethoven associated with it; nor is it a great city with a world famous concert hall or opera house home to one of the great orchestras of the world (although, as I will explain later, its concert hall is indeed renowned in musical circles). No, Eisenstadt is a quieter, less well known venue; a country town, a retiring place with perhaps a more gentle history – but what a history! This small town, deep in the Austrian countryside, is in truth one of the great musical venues of the world, forever associated with one of the “fathers” of western music and more than that: the town’s musical history also made it a key player in the history and the great and good of European history. This was the home of Joseph Haydn a composer who is very special to us both and this place was the main reason for our whole holiday and our trip that day.

Papa Haydn

For most of his working life Joseph Haydn worked here at Eisenstadt; a product of his age and the high culture of 18^th century Europe, he rubbed shoulders with the great musical, political, social and royal names of that time. Immersed in music from an early age Haydn composed  and built up a repertoire and reputation that few have matched both in his time and since as he worked both within and for the aristocratic “establishment” of the Hapsburg Empire and witnessed the great events and people of the late 18^th and early 19^th century.

He was an innovative musical ground breaker taking the symphony, the sonata and the string quartet to new heights; he created the basis of much of what we musically accept and enjoy today and it is doubtful that his young contemporary Mozart or the great Beethoven or indeed any of the other wonderful musical names who followed him would have achieved their successes quite so readily had it not been for Haydn. He spent most of his working life concentrating on the music of the palace and the concert hall – opera, symphony, chamber music - and then in the last part of his life produced some of his (and the world’s) greatest religious masterpieces: the Creation, the Nelson Mass, the Seasons  and the Te Deum – all of which are now part of the staple diet of choirs great and small throughout the world. He spent the majority of his life at the magnificent but remote Esterházy Palace at Eisenstadt  – but later in his life found huge recognition, fame and fortune on his visits to other European capitals but especially to his beloved London where he became a much loved and musically respected visitor in the late 18^th century.

All the other composers owe much of their fame to Haydn

The music of Haydn has always been amongst our favourites but of all his works it is the great choral music that Pat and I love: especially the Creation, the Te Deum, the Seasons and, my own favourite, the Nelson Mass. These are works to not only to enjoy musically but to be moved by: their grandness, their mighty choruses, their sheer musicality, and their wonderful celebration of mankind and of heaven and earth are among the pinnacles of western music's achievement. Haydn’s choral music enriches the very soul – not only making us feel better but it makes us dream of better things. I once remember listening to a radio programme and as the introduction to playing the Credo from the Nelson Mass  the radio presenter said “Quick, go outside, switch on your car radio at maximum volume and with the car doors open, let the whole street hear this and I guarantee that everyone will come out smiling”. Well, I didn’t take his advice, I wasn’t quite as sure as he that my neighbours would so appreciative,  but I knew what he meant – the music of Haydn is music to make you feel better and to uplift you on the greyest of days.  Our love of Haydn’s music was the reason for our bus trip, but there was more. Because his music is such a staple of choral music we knew the stories associated with it and with Eisenstadt and Esterházy; we had heard them so many times – indeed I have written of them so often when writing the Ruddington & District Choral Society’s programme notes – so we wanted to see these places that we had heard and read so much of but never actually visited.

In the Haydn Haus

And so, we crossed the road, the bus disappearing into the town centre and walked through the entrance gate to be confronted by one of the most glorious buildings that I have seen: Schloss Esterházy. An exquisite gem of a place – not a mighty palace such as Versailles or the Schönbrunn – but absolutely beautiful, standing on a slight rise with the brilliant blue sky behind it. This was the home of the Princes of  Esterházy – a family of what we might today call “power brokers”, “wheelers and dealers”, “prime movers” in the mighty Austrian Hapsburg Empire of the 18^th century. The  Esterházy family knew everyone who was anyone in the aristocratic, political and high society life of Europe at that time and it was working for this family that Haydn spent the majority of his life.

With Papa Haydn at the Haydn Haus

Haydn was humbly born in the tiny Austrian town of Rohrau, where his father made carts. His mother was a cook. When he was 8, the young Joseph went to Vienna to sing in the choir at St. Stephen's Cathedral (see previous blog). His younger brother Michael joined him and a tale tells that the young Joseph’s voice began to break. The Kapellmeister, Herr Reutter, gave Joseph’s part in the ‘Salve Regina’ to brother Michael, who sang it so beautifully that he reportedly received twenty-four ducats in gold from the Empress Maria Theresa. Reutter, anxious to retain the musically gifted Joseph suggested that Joseph’s voice might be preserved, and even improved by sending him to the court chapel, which contained at least a dozen castrati. Haydn’s father, however, having heard of the proposal rushed to Vienna to save his son!

After the young Haydn left the choir, he supported himself by teaching and playing violin, while studying counterpoint and harmony and in 1761 as his skills and talents became more widely praised he was named Kapellmeister at the palace of the Esterházy family in Eisenstadt. Away from Vienna and to a degree isolated from other composers and musical trends in the relatively remote town he was, as he put it, "forced to become original."

Prince Nikolaus Esterházy - 
one of Haydn's employers. What a great service
his family did for the cause of music!

It was his job to write music for the Esterházy princes, and to conduct their orchestra. He composed a vast number symphonies, operas, religious works, string quartets, and other kinds of other music for performance at the Esterházy court. While he rose in the family's esteem, his popularity outside the palace walls also increased, and he eventually wrote as much music for publication as for the family. Several important works of this period were commissions from abroad which, later in life,  encouraged Haydn to travel. He was a good businessman and music publishing made him and his music famous all over Europe. After he retired from working for the Esterházy family, Haydn made two very successful trips to England, where audiences treated him like a superstar flocking to his concerts, and it was during his time in England that he generated some of his best-known and most loved work, including the Surprise, Military, Drumroll and London symphonies. In the final years of his life his old employers, the Esterházy family invited him back and he stayed there until his death.

In his own life time and still today Haydn is often referred to as “Papa” Haydn. This originated as a term of affection bestowed on him by the musicians at the Esterházy court where he was seen as a father figure, somebody who willingly gave advice and who was highly respected as a musician. His benevolent authority and willingness to intercede on behalf of any players who might find themselves in trouble became well known and thus the practice of calling Haydn "Papa" became increasingly popular. As time passed  this term of affection spread beyond  Esterházy to Vienna and  then to wider Europe as his role in the development of classical music became obvious. Consequently and increasingly, therefore, fellow composers, musicians and the music loving public referred to him as the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet"  - “Papa” Haydn. 

We gasped as the guide opened the doors and we saw this: the Great Hall

With all this in mind we walked up the grassy slope to the front of the Esterhazy, checked the opening times and then decided that a morning coffee and a slice of the famous Austrian Sachertorte would be a good way of celebrating our arrival! Sitting in the morning sun, enjoying our coffee and cake, the Eszterházy just a few yards away across the lawn, it seemed quite unbelievable that we were sitting where Papa Haydn might well have sat or walked – and certainly seen what we were seeing; this beautiful palace that was so much part of his life and so much a part of the history and development of western music is still today vey much as he knew it.

The Great Hall ready for a concert - what must Nelson have thought as he sat here

One could listen to nearly every one of Haydn’s works and be overwhelmed by his sheer musicality and composing skills; and whilst each one has its place in the history and development of western music there is more. Because of the position that Haydn enjoyed in working at Eszterházy his works have greater resonance and significance – they reflect the feelings, the personalities and the great events of his age. Haydn was writing for the Esterhazy court, a place although removed from Vienna still of great European importance where the great and the good, the “movers and the shakers” of the continent were regular guests. Haydn’s music was written for these people and the events that shaped the Europe of his time – and indeed still resonates in our world today - and of all his works his Missa in Angustiis, my own favourite, written just as the 19^th century was dawning, illustrates well Haydn’s place in the music and the history of Europe.

Part of the wonderful ceiling 

In early 1798 Napoleon, in the wake of the French Revolution, assembled a substantial invasion force and sailed east into the Mediterranean. The news soon reached British naval intelligence but by the time that Nelson, in command of the British fleet, located the force off Egypt, Napoleon had captured Malta and most of Egypt. Nelson, catching the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, immediately attacked and annihilated it, and his victory, popularly known as the Battle of the Nile, reverberated around Europe and beyond. Nelson, following his dramatic victory sailed his fleet into the harbor at Naples and was immediately and ecstatically heralded as the 'saviour of Europe'. Napoleon, in a desperate situation, dodging British frigates, returned alone with just his general staff to France to plan his next move.

It was at this stage that, so far as Nelson - and ultimately Haydn - was concerned, fate appeared in the form of Lady Hamilton. Sir William and Lady Hamilton were well regarded in Naples; Sir William a diplomat -  'our man in Naples' - and she a woman regarded as one of the beauties of the age. Nelson fell for her and a ménage-a-trois was soon established. The Admiralty in London, upon learning of this, ordered Nelson to return forthwith to England but Nelson was unwilling to comply with alacrity – he was, after all, the toast of Europe and enjoying the adulation of both the continent and Lady Hamilton; he was, and he knew it, “untouchable” so he dragged his heels. At last, after several months sojourn enjoying the sun of Italy and the undoubted charms of Lady Hamilton the great Admiral reluctantly arranged to travel back to London overland on a slow  and circuitous route with the Hamiltons. The route included Vienna, and from there Nelson and his companions visited Prince Esterházy at Eisenstadt in 1800 where, records tell, he was greeted as a hero and spent several weeks enjoying Hapsburg and Esterházy hospitality.

The Small Hall - you can get married here today!

Amongst his other court duties Haydn was required to produce a new Mass each year for the name-day of the Princess Esterházy and in the summer of 1798, he had composed a Mass for the Princess  which he catalogued as Missa in Angustiis ('Mass for Times of Distress' – as they undoubtedly were in Europe as Napoleon threatened before Nelson’s great victory).  It is Haydn's largest Mass, and one of his most well-known and best loved choral works – many regard it as his greatest work. He could not have known of the Battle of the Nile until weeks after the Mass was finished, so the work was certainly not written to celebrate Nelson’s victory. 
However, Missa in Angustiis was performed for the name day of the Princess Esterházy and to honour Nelson on the great man’s arrival at Eisenstadt, and to celebrate his service to Europe. Nelson was, apparently, both moved and overjoyed and he and  Haydn became friends;  some accounts suggest that Nelson gave Haydn a gold watch which the Admiral had capture at the Battle of the Nile, and in return received from the composer the pen that Haydn had used to compose a cantata in honour and praise of Lady Hamilton.

The conquering hero: Admiral Nelson

Eventually and reluctantly, the Admiral and his entourage had to depart and make their way back to London. Nelson, however, did not suffer the ire of the Admiralty for his wayward behaviour with Lady Hamilton; the liaison was soon forgotten by Nelson’s masters because within months of his arrival home he was once again at sea confronting Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805). This was, of course, when Nelson perished but his death and his great victory guaranteed him immortality and the grateful hero worship of the nation and the whole of Europe; it was also at that point that Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis quickly gained a new and increasingly popular title in recognition of the great man who had again saved the continent from Napoleon's designs. It was a name that it still keeps today: the Nelson Mass.

At the time that the Nelson Mass was written Haydn was in his sixty sixth year and at the height of his fame, the most celebrated musician of the late eighteenth century and the first of the great triumvirate – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven . It is not insignificant that the Nelson Mass was written in the same year as his popular choral work, The Creation – both  are works  reflecting Haydn’s joyous idyllic celebration of an ordered enlightened universe, an ideal vision that contrasting with the turbulence of the Napoleonic wars and both reflecting Haydn’s perfect attunement to the spirit of the age.

A contemporary bust of Haydn

So, we paid our few Euros to take a guided tour of the Palace; what a bargain! Of all the places that we have visited and all the entry fees that we have paid out over the years this was, for me, one of (if not the) most worthwhile. It was an absolute joy. The Palace is a gem, beautifully maintained, it is large enough to be impressive but small enough to take in and feel lived in. With the help of the excellent guide we toured the rooms and it was easy to imagine Haydn walking there and knowing well the spaces in which we walked. The intimate family rooms, the servants’ (and musicians’) quarters the art treasures, the narrow passage ways and hidden stairs so that servants and ladies in waiting could enter their master’s and lady’s chambers unobtrusively all seemed so lived in and fresh – one could almost touch the past. This place was no dusty antiquity but a living breathing home, where, it seemed to me, Haydn, his musicians, the servants and the great Esterházy princes and princesses had just stepped outside for a few moments!  As I gazed at the art work on the walls depicting Emperors and Empresses , Princes and Princesses and as I moved from one room to another I fully expected Horatio Nelson or his Lady Hamilton or Papa Haydn to suddenly confront me as they made their way to dinner or to the Chapel or to their own apartments. The whole place was living history.  But there was one room which for me (and I think every other member of the small group that comprised our tour) which was very special and when the guide opened the door for us to enter there was an audible gasp from us all.

The Lady Di of her day? - Emma Hamilton,

Nelson's mistress and muse

The Great Hall which in Haydn’s day was used for the great gatherings – splendid dinners, balls and concerts - was where Joseph Haydn would have conducted his newly written works. It was here where Nelson and his entourage sat with the other dignitaries as they listened to Haydn's string quartets or the Creation or, most importantly, the Missa in Angustiis: the Nelson Mass. Compared with many of the world’s great concert halls this is a small place, but what a place; a riot of glorious colour and high baroque design, a place to overwhelm and to impress! Even today and despite its relative smallness it is acknowledged as one of the great concert halls of the world and acoustically one of the finest and as we stood there listening to the guide it was easy to picture Haydn walking in to take his place at the front of his orchestra and choir and of hearing one of his symphonies, or string quartets filling the room. As I stood there I wondered what Nelson must have thought as he sat there and the first notes of the Nelson Mass struck up and the soaring voices of the choir and then the soprano began the glorious and uplifting Kyrie Eleison . Did he look up to the wonderful ceiling above his head or to the richly decorated walls of the room? If he did – and he must have done – then seeing the glorious room in which he sat, surrounded by the great and powerful of Europe, Lady Hamilton by his side, he the centre of the world’s adulation and Haydn’s wonderful and uplifting music in his ear, it all must have confirmed to him his own invincibility; in modern terms he must have thought “ I've made it! It doesn’t get better than this!”

Original scores

The tour over too soon, we left the Palace and made our way down the side street to find Haydn’s House. It sits in the shadow of the Palace just a few hundred yards away and like the Esterházy is quite magical. We wandered its floors, almost feeling the presence of the great man who had lived here for so many years. We looked at his belongings and the musical heritage that he had left. We gazed at a contemporary mask  of Nelson’s face and felt very close to Papa Haydn as our eyes took in his original scores for the Nelson Mass, the Creation and the Seasons.  We put on headphones and listened to sections of the Nelson Mass, his string quartets, and extracts from his symphonies; in short we were once again entranced by this man and this little town and all that it contained and which, has over the years, has become so much part of our own lives.

Eisenstadt is small but it is, as the town’s signpost told us, the capital of the state of Burgenland – the least populous of Austria’s states. Although designated a city, Eisenstadt has only some 14000 inhabitants - only about twice the number of people who live in my own small village on the outskirts of Nottingham. It lies on the edge of the country close to the Hungarian border, indeed the Esterházy family were Hungarian nobles by descent. As we wandered down the pedestrianised main street with the Palace standing at one end we took in the lovely buildings and atmosphere of this delightful and gentle place. We enjoyed a very pleasant lunch sitting in the sun and later in the afternoon an ice cream as we watched the world go by. Half way down the main street stands the Rathaus – the town hall; can there be a more beautiful town hall in the whole of the world – I seriously doubt it. And just off the main street lies the church – newly renovated but exquisite with some of the most glorious stained glass we have ever seen.  Again, like everything else we had seen that day a real jewel, worth a visit in itself; we both agreed, Eisenstadt is worth another, longer visit in the near future.

Eisenstadt Rathaus - beats most other town halls I've seen!

And as we sat enjoying our ice cream, our musical pilgrimage was almost at an end. On the following  day we would fly back to Heathrow and I thought, as I had often done  that day, how strange it seems that this small and easily missable place should become such an important spot in the history of music and Europe. At the time of Haydn, Nelson, Mozart, the Empress  Maria Theresa, Napoleon, the Esterházy princes  and all the other grand, powerful and great figures from history, this small place was one of the centres of European – indeed world - politics, life, culture and power. It was a place  where in the Esterházy’s quiet drawing rooms and salons, over its dinner tables, in its bedrooms and in its wonderful concert hall not only the wonderful music of Haydn would have been enjoyed but great decisions taken, alliances made, and the European order decided by those “movers and shakers” of the 18^th and 19^th century world.

Down the delightful main street of Eisenstadt

And as I thought on this I reflected that in Haydn and Nelson’s day when travel was so much more difficult how amazing was it at how these people travelled the vast distances that they did without our modern means of transport and communication to get to places like Eisenstadt. I wonder what Nelson and Lady Hamilton and the rest of their entourage thought and felt after their long journey across Europe from Naples  as their carriages at rolled up to the gates of Palace. I marvelled at how it must all have been planned, the stops along the way, the unmade roads, the changes of the horses and all the other “stuff” that we today never have to think about.  I wondered, too, how Joseph Haydn made his journey to far off London where he became something of a superstar for a few years and then returned to this little place for the remaining years of his life. Tomorrow, I reflected, we would fly back to London in about two hours, for him it was  a journey of many weeks if not months  Today we complain if our bus is a minute or two late, or if we are stuck in a traffic jam for any period of time; Pat and I had travelled for an hour or so on our short journey from Vienna – in Haydn’s day that would have been a significant and probably uncomfortable journey of several hours – and yet in those far off days, Haydn and his peers could undertake these great trials and difficulties but then return home and write and perform such glorious music.

Today, the Princes and Princesses Esterházy are no more resident at the palace - the modern world has changed them and their lifestyle. The descendants of those  Esterházy aristocrats, like their patrons the Hapsburgs, now live in world capitals - New York, London, Paris, Berlin and the rest - but the historical,  cultural and political impact of  those far off years at their magnificent Eisenstadt home is still huge. They were people who shaped not only their own world but helped in no small way to make the world that we know and inhabit today.  When Nelson visited and  enjoyed  Esterházy hospitality and Haydn's music he was the toast of Europe having stopped Napoleon's advance. At that same time Mare Antoinette, daughter of the recently deceased Hapsburg Empress Marie Theresa, had been executed in the French Revolution from whence Napoleon's power grew - no wonder Europe was afraid and grateful to Nelson; revolution and  fear threatened to overcome the continent. Against this backdrop the  Esterházy court provided not only a cultural bolt hole for these powerful men and women but a  place where alliances could be forged, policies discussed and plans made. It helped in ensuring the stability of Europe both at the time and for future generations. The music of Joseph Haydn was integral to this - it provided an atmosphere which reminded these powerful people  who they were and what they were about.  Haydn, ever a man of his times, ever with his finger on the pulse not only wrote great music to entertain and to enjoy but great and inspiring  music for great events, to strengthen resolve and to celebrate the great, the good, and the hopes and fears of the age  - the "Nelson Mass", the "Missa in Angustiis" -  a "Mass for Times of Distress " - was such a work. This wonderful work, and others by Haydn, provided some form of higher framework, a kind of moral compass to inspire, reflect and celebrate great decisions and great actions and it is still doing that today - inspiring and opening the eyes of those who sing it, play it or listen to it to see something better and more worthy.

For a brief, and glittering, few years this little provincial town in Austria and this family of largely well meaning nobles together with this gentle and humble maestro provided a cultural oasis but in doing so they unknowingly gave huge amounts of pleasure and inspiration not only to their own age but to coming generations. And perhaps more importantly played a  pivotal role not only in shaping their world but in  making our world what it is today; I found that not only wonderful but awesome and humbling. We had, indeed, been treading in the footprints of giants.