HAYDN AND MOZART: TWO MUSICAL MASONS
Linda J. Griffiths
In the late eighteenth century the city of Vienna in Austria was home to two of the greatest composers of all time, both of whom were Freemasons.
Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were also close friends, in spite of a difference of 24 years in their ages. Their friendship might perhaps be compared to that between two other famous Masons, half a world away, who were their contemporaries: George Washington, who was born the same year as Haydn, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who was born the year after Mozart.
THE PIONEER
Franz Joseph Haydn was born in 1732 to a poor family in eastern Austria. Blessed with a good singing voice, he was hired as a boy singer in the cathedral at Vienna. Here he earned a small salary, lived at the choir school, and received some education, learning to read music and to play the organ and violin. However, his voice changed, and unable to sing a pure soprano any more, he was of no further use to the choir and had to leave the school.
Undaunted, the young man became a street musician with a small band, playing popular music for evening serenades. In those pre-radio days, one might spend many a pleasant evening sitting and chatting with friends, listening to the music of the serenaders. Haydn had to think on his feet: if players were missing, he had to re-write the music for whoever was available, or even compose something entirely new virtually on the spot. It was a precarious existence and he lived on the edge of poverty, but it sharpened his wits and provided him with a vast treasure of musical experience.
In 1761 Haydn obtained a secure position as a composer and violinist in the service of the Esterhazy family. Prince Mikolaus Esterhazy, a skilled musician, had mastered a complicated stringed instrument called a baryton. He wasted good music to play on his baryton, and Haydn obligingly supplied him with many trios and quartets. The prince also required new music for concerts and court occasions. It had to be good music, as the prince was a connoisseur, and Haydn rose to the challenge, turning out dozens of symphonies, concertos, operas, and chamber works.
The prince spent his winters in the city of Eisenstadt and his summers at his country estate, called Esterhaz. This estate was isolated, and once there, you were there for the season. In this isolation Haydn had to look inside himself for musical inspiration; as he remarked, he was "forced to become original."
Again he had to write for the players he had available. Resourceful as always, Haydn took the solemn church music and the tuneful street music he had grown up with, and singlehandedly reshaped them. He invented the modern string quartet, in which two violins, a viola and violoncello converse with equal voices. He also departed from the Baroque style of massive grandeur, and perfected the Classical style, lighter, more rational, and often playful.
His new style was a reflection fo the man himself. Haydn loved a good joke, and he loved to write jokes into his music. His "Farewell" symphony of 1772, for example, was meant to give Prince Nikolaus a gentle hint. The prince had grown comfortable at Esterhaz that year and showed no sign of returning to Eisenstadt in the fall. The musicians, thinking of their wives and girlfriends in Eisenstadt, were growing restless. So Haydn wrote a symphony for the occasion, with a rather unusual last movement.
The movement starts with twelve musicians playing together. Halfway through, an oboist and horn player finish, pick up their instruments, and leave. Then the bassoon player stops, takes his instrument, and leaves. One by one, each of the other parts comes to an end, and each player leaves, until there are only two violinists sitting among the empty chairs, playing together very quietly. The prince took the hint, and happy musicians were reunited with their loved ones.
When Prince Nikolaus died in 1790, his son Anton became prince. Anton Esterhazy was not a music lover, but he continued to be a patron of Haydn, and allowed him to live in Vienna and compose whatever he chose.
Now 58, Haydn moved to Vienna to stay, and found to his surprise that he had become famous. A humble, practical man, he had never realized that people all over Europe were coming to love his music, and that other composers were writing in his style. He had always produced his music out of necessity, and worked hard at it; every morning he would sit down at the keyboard and pray for inspiration.
Many honors came his way. Aspiring composers and pianists begged to study with him. Tours were arranged to France and to England, where Haydn was deeply impressed on hearing Handel's Messiah for the first time. He received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.
He kept right on composing. His masses and oratorios, and his more than 100 symphonies, were acclaimed as masterpieces. The one-time street musician was universally beloved, and he would live comfortably until 1809, when he died at the age of seventy-seven.
THE GENIUS
Among the many fans of Haydn was Mozart, only 34 when Haydn moved to Vienna to stay, but famous in his own right. When the two composers first met, they were already warm admirers of each other's work.
Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 at Salzburg, a city at the other end of Austria from Vienna. His father Leopold was a composer employed by the Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold realized right away tha this son was a musical genius, and took him in had to give him a thorough musical training.
Wolfgang Mozart was seven years old when he first toured Europe as a child prodigy under the guidance of his father; and by the age of nine, he had written several symphonies.
The young Mozart was full of zest and soaked up music like a sponge. His memory was phenomenal. Upon hearing a peice of music sung one in Rome, he was able to write it down correctly note for note. He quickly mastered the Classical style of mucic, and could compose convincingly in th older Baroque style also. However, at an early age his gifts developed beyond merely writing music without mistakes. Mozart possessed a rare sense of timing, and a sure instinct for the dramatic; combining these talents with his thorough training, he was able to make his music express perfectly whatever he chose.
Music poured out of him. He wrote down the notes quickly and confidently, rarely making corrections, almost as if he were taking dictation. It seems that he could not have stopped composing music, any more than he could have stopped breathing. In his short life he completed over 600 seperate works.
Accustomed to success as a child prodigy, Mozart began to encounter obstacles and hardships in his adult life. He wanted to be independent of his father's employer, the Archbishop, but he was unable to find another musical patron, as Haydn had found in Prince Esterhazy. In Vienna Mozart attempted to support his family as a freelance composer, performer and music teacher. He was not successful; the public liked his music but was often unwilling to pay for it. Mozart's health declined along with his fortunes. He was to die in 1791 at the age of thirty-five, leaving several exquisite compositions unfinished.
BOTH MASONS
Besides being mutual admirers, Haydn and Mozart were brethren in Freemasonry, which flourished in Austria at the time but was later suppressed. Haydn took his membership rather casually; records show only that he became an Entered Apprentice in the lodge Zur Wahren Eintracht (To True Harmony) in 1785, and he does not seem to have written any distinctly Masonic music.
Mozart, however, threw himself into Masonry with his characteristic zeal. In 1784 he was initiated in the lodge Zur Wohltaetigkeit (To Charity), which merged with two other lodges the following year. The merged lodge, called Zur Neugekronten Hoffnung (To New-Crowned Hope), had an illustrious membership by 1788, including one prince, 36 counts, one marquis and 14 barons. A number of lodge brethren had the habit of quietly helping out when Mozart was in particularly difficult financial straits. The list of Masonic compositions by Mozart is impressive, including songs for opening and closing the lodge, hymns, cantatas, funeral music, and the opera THE MAGIC FLUTE, which is full of Masonic symbolism.
Most American Masons are aware of the heritage of liberty left to us by Bros. Washington and Lafayette. Not as many are familiar with the heritage of great music lift by Bros. Haydn and Mozart. Between them, they shaped and perfected a musical language that still speaks directly to us today, after a lapse of two centuries. The music of Haydn and Mozart has never gone out of style.
Now 58, Haydn moved to Vienna to stay, and found to his surprise that he had become famous. A humble, practical man, he had never realized that people all over Europe were coming to love his music, and that other composers were writing in his style. He had always produced his music out of necessity, and worked hard at it; every morning he would sit down at the keyboard and pray for inspiration.
Many honors came his way. Aspiring composers and pianists begged to study with him. Tours were arranged to France and to England, where Haydn was deeply impressed on hearing Handel's Messiah for the first time. He received a [Incomplete] a patron of Haydn, and allowed him to live in Vienna and compose whatever he chose.
Linda J. Griffiths, daughter of Associate Editor of The Maine Mason, holds degrees in music from Bates College, the University of California, and Oxford University.