matic piquancy, of expression,
dignity without pompousness or grandiloquence, feeling without
hysteria. His variety seems endless, his energy never flags, and often
he has more than a touch of the divine quality. He did not attempt to
compose tragedies of life, for his temperament forbade it; but in his
finest music he is never commonplace, because he had a strongly marked
temperament and was poetically inspired. By dint of a sincerity that was
perfect he made music which, though it is shaped in outline by the
classical spirit, will be for ever interesting. To listen to him
immediately after Tschaikowsky is hard, sometimes impossible, yet to me
it seems anything but impossible that our descendants will be listening
to him when students are turning to the biographical dictionaries to
find out who Tschaikowsky was. A century ago Haydn was as fresh and
novel as Tschaikowsky is now, and as overwhelming a personality in the
world of music as the mighty Wagner. But time equalizes and evens
things, and in another hundred years all that is merely up-to-date in
musical speech and phraseology will have lost its flavour and
seductiveness; but the voice that is sincere, whether the word is spoken
to-day or was spoken a century ago, will sound as clear as ever, and the
one voice shall not be clearer nor more convincing than the other.
HAYDN'S PRINCIPAL COMPOSITIONS
125 Symphonies and orchestral pieces.
31 Concertos.
176 pieces for the baryton.
77 Quartets.
14 Masses.
English canzonets.
_The Spirit Song._
Several operas.
_The Creation_.
_The Seasons_.
_The Seven Words_.
A large number of pieces for harpsichord or piano.
BOOKS ABOUT HAYDN
POHL: "Joseph Haydn."
POHL: "Haydn and Mozart in London."
MICHAEL KELLY: "Reminiscences."
BELL'S MINIATURE SERIES OF MUSICIANS
COMPANION SERIES TO
Bell's Miniature Series of Painters
Each volume 6-1/4 inches, price 1s. net; or in limp leather,
with photogravure frontispiece, 2s. net.
EDITED BY
G.C. WILLIAMSON. LITT.D.
NOW READY.
BACH. By E.H. THORNE.
BEETHOVEN. By J.S. SHEDLOCK, B.A.
BRAHMS. By HERBERT ANTCLIFFE.
CHOPIN. By E.J. OLDMEADOW.
GOUNOD. By HENRY TOLHORST.
GRIEG. By E. MARKHAM LEE, M.A., Mus.D.
HANDEL. By W.H. CUMMINGS, MUS.D., F.S.A.,
Principal of the Guildhall School of Music.
HAYDN. By JOHN F. RUNCIMAN
MENDELSSOHN. By VERNON BLACKBURN.
MOZART. By EBENEZER PROUT,
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