User:Opus33/Joseph Haydn's years as a freelance musician

During the period from about 1749 to about 1753, the composer Joseph Haydn (1732-809) had no full-time position and worked as a freelance musician. During the preceding years, he had worked as a boy soprano, living in the Kapellhaus at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna and singing under the direction of Georg Reutter, who was also responsible for his education. Starting (probably) in the year 1757, he had a full time position as Kapellmeister (director of music) for Count Morzin. In between, he struggled to establish his career in music and fill gaps in his musical training. This period of Haydn's life is not well documented and what is known consists largely of hard-to-date anecdotes.

Dismissal from the St. Stephen's choir

The teenaged Haydn, naturally enough, gradually lost the ability to sing soprano that had brought him to Vienna and launched his career and training as a musician. It was quite inevitable that he would lose his position; though xxx suggests it would have been nicer if his employer Reutter had found him some other position (for example, as a violinist) rather than simply dismissing him. In any event, it is known that Haydn was indeed dismissed, and rather suddenly. Where authorities differ greatly is what happened at the moment he was dropped from the choirs.

The early biographers

All choirboys eventually lose their jobs, since male children do not retains their high voice into adulthood. Thus Haydn knew perfectly well that he would not remain in the St. Stephen's ensemble forever. Sources agree that Haydn's dismissal was preceded by a period in which he continued to try to sing soprano but encountered ever more difficulty as his larynx grew towards its manly dimensions. It was during this period that the monarch of Austria, Maria Theresia, described the erstwhile fine singer as "crowing".

Sources also generally agree that the actual moment when Haydn was cashiered was prompted by a prank he committed; namely cutting off the pigtail of another chorister. Haydn biographer Albert Christoph Dies describes the results thus:

Reutter called him to account and sentenced him to a caning on the palm of he hand. The moment of punishment arrived. Haydn sought every means to escapte it and ended up declaring that he would rather not be a choirboy any more and would leave immediately if he would not be punished. "That won't work!" Reutter retorted. "First you'll be caned, and then get out!"

It is what happened next where sources differ radically. The main sources that can be consulted are the four biographies written, each by admirers of Haydn, and published not long after his death.

The most dramatic tale is told by xxx Framery, a xxx who is believed to have gotten much of his information second hand, from Haydn's good friend and former pupil Ignaz Pleyel.

The unfortunate Joseph at first didn't know what to do or to whom he could turn for sanctuary; he was forced to spend the first night in the street, where a stone bench served him as a bed. The following day a poor musician whom he knew, named [ xxx ] "Spangler", recognized him when passing by in the street. Haydn told him his sad story in detail, and the good man took pity on him.

This was xxx Spangler, who xxx. Framery goes on to describe Spangler's own crowded accommodations, indicating it was quite generous of him to crowd Haydn, for a time, into his household. [ Haydn xxx daughter ].

Another early biography, Giuseppe Carpani, tells a rather different tale:

Being a little mischievous, like all lively young people, he one day took it into his head to cut off the skirt of one of his comrade's gowns, a crime which was deemed unpardonable. He had sung at St. Stephen's eleven years; and, on the day of his expulsion, his only fortune consisted in his rising talent, a poor resource when it is unknown. He, nevertheless, had an admirer. Obliged to seek for a lodging, chance threw in his way a peruke-maker, named Keller, who had often admired, at the cathedral, the beauty of his voice; and who, in consequence, offered him an asylum. Keller received him as a son, sharing with him his humble fare, and charging his wife with the care of his clothing.

Haydn, freed from all worldly cares, and established in the obscure dwelling of the peruke-maker, was able to pursue his studies without interruption, and to make rapid progress.

It is indeed true that Haydn did indeed at some point fall in love with Keller's younger daughter, and when the latter entered a convent, he married (1760) Keller's older daughter xxx; a marriage that proved to be a very unhappy one. However, no other biographer asserts that Haydn went directly from the St. Stephen's Kapellhaus into Keller's home.

Dies, already quoted above, gives a third version:

Reutter kept his word, and thus the cashiered schoolboy, helpless, without money, outfitted with three miserable shirts and a worn-out coat, stepped into the great and unknown world. His parents were very upset. The tender-hearted mother especially showed her anxious cares with tears in her eyes. She implored her son that he might still give in to the wishes and prayers of his parents and dedicate himself to the priesthood.

This would suggest that when dismissed Haydn paid a temporary visit to his home village of Rohrau, where he would have discussed his future with his parents.

Dies goes on to describe how Haydn, with difficulty, resisted his mother's wish for him to become a priest. He does not say where Haydn went next, but eventually describes one of his first lodgings in Vienna: "a dark little attic five floors up under the eaves of the Michaelerhaus, in the Kohlmarkt."

A terse, fourth version is given by one other earlier biography, Georg August Griesinger:

Haydn was dismissed from the Choir School in his sixteenth year xxx because his voice had broken. He could not expect the least support from his poor parents and so had to try to make his own way by his talent alone. In Vienna he moved into a wretched little attic room without a stove (in the house at No. 1220 in Michaelerplatz).

Modern biographers

Faced with this conflicting testimony, biographers working after Haydn's time have adopted different courses, particularly concerning (1) whether Haydn was cruelly expelled into the streets; (2) whether he spent a homeless night on a park bench; (3) whether he went home to Rohrau.

An early, widely admired biography by Carl Ferdinand Pohl unskeptically presents Framery's version:

xxx

The Framery tale is also given in a charming version in Hughes's 1950 biography:

xxx

Geiringer

Jones

The historical drift appears to be in the direction of decreasing sentimentality: while it may be pleasant to think that Haydn worked his way to career success from a starting point of homelessness, scrutiny of the four early biographies has shown that they differ in the number of claims they make that are, in light of other historical evidence, clearly false. From such scrutiny a clear hierarchy of reliability emerges, with Framery the least trustable, Carpani the second-least, Dies the third-least, and lastly Griesinger as the most trustworthy source. The drift of modern biographies to the dull-but-inspiring conclusion, "Haydn went home to Rohrau", is perhaps best understood in light of improved understanding of the trustability of the original sources.

away from the Framery versions (and the more sentiment