his new idea.




CHAPTER IV

1761-1790


Haydn went to Eisenstadt, in Hungary, in 1761 to take up the duties of
his new post--that of second Kapellmeister to Prince Anton of Esterhazy.
In that year feudal Europe had not been shaken to the foundations by the
French Revolution; few in Europe, indeed, and none in sleeping German
Austria, dreamed that such a shaking was at hand, and that royal and
ducal and lesser aristocratic heads, before the century was out, would
be dear at two a penny. Those drowsy old courts--how charming they seem
on paper, how fascinating as depicted by Watteau! Yet one wonders how in
such an atmosphere any new plants of art managed to shoot at all. The
punctilious etiquette, the wigs, the powder, the patches, the
grandiloquent speechifyings, the stately bows and graceful curtsies, the
prevalence--nay, the domination--of taste, what a business it all was!
The small electors, seigneurs, dukes and what not imitated the archducal
courts; the archdukes mimicked the imperial courts: all was stiff,
stilted, unnatural to a degree that seems to us nowadays positively
soul-killing, devilish. But some surprising plants grew up, some
wondrous fruits ripened in them. A peasant-mind, imbued with
peasant-songs, was set in one; the peasant-mind in all outward matters
conformed to all the rules, and was loved by the petty princes to whom
it was never other than highly, utterly respectful, and lo! the