Haydn by J. Cuthbert (James Cuthbert) Hadden
page 46 of 240 (19%)
page 46 of 240 (19%)
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exchanged.
"Given at Vienna this 1st day of May 1761, "Ad mandatum Celsissimi Principis. "JOHANN STIFFTELL, Secretary." An "Upper Servant"? The situation indicated by this lengthy document has afforded matter for a good deal of comment, and not a little foolish writing. With some it is the old case of Porpora and the blacking of the boots. Thus Miss Townsend remarks: "Our indignation is roused at finding a great artist placed in the position of an upper servant, and required to perform duties almost menial in their nature." That is essentially a modern view. These things have to be judged in relation to the ideas of the age. It was only a few years before this that Johnson had contemptuously thrown away a pair of boots which some pitying soul had placed at the door of his rooms at Pembroke. The British mind likes to think of the sturdy independence of the man who struck the death-blow at patronage in literature. But Johnson himself had the meanest opinion of fiddlers. Dependence in the Order of Nature There was no talk in Haydn's native country of the dignity of art, at any rate so far as musicians were concerned. When Mozart first arrived in Vienna in 1781, he had to live with the |
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