to get on almost unnecessary. For fifty years he worked away
contentedly as bandmaster to Prince Esterhazy, composing the due
amount of music, conducting the due number of concerts, taking his
salary of some seventy odd pounds per annum thankfully, and putting on
his uniform for special State occasions with as little grumbling as
possible, all as a good bandmaster should. He had gone through a short
period of roughing it in his youth, and he had made one or two
mistakes as he settled down. He married a woman who worked with
enthusiasm to render his early life intolerable, and begged him in his
old age to buy a certain cottage, as it would suit her admirably when
she became a widow. But he consoled himself as men do in the
circumstances, and did not allow his mistakes to poison all his life,
or cause him any special worry. His other troubles were not very
serious. A Music Society which he wished to join tried to trap him
into an agreement to write important compositions for it whenever they
were wanted. Once he offended his princely master by learning to play
the baryton, an instrument on which the prince was a performer
greatly esteemed by his retainers. Such teacup storms soon passed:
Prince Esterhazy doubtless forgave him; the Society was soon
forgotten; and Haydn worked on placidly. Every morning he rose with or
before the lark, dressed himself with a degree of neatness that
astonished even that neat dressing age, and sat down to compose music.
Later in each day he is reported to have eaten, to have rehearsed his
band or conducted concerts, and so to bed to prepare himself by
refreshing slumber for the next day's labours. At certain periods of
the year Prince Esterhazy and his court adjourned to Esterhaz, and at
certain periods they came back to Eisenstadt: thus they were saved by
due variety from utter petrifaction. Haydn seems to have liked the
life, and to have thought moreover that it was good for him and his
art. By being thrown so much back upon himself, he said, he had been