Werner, his musical chief in his next station, had the sense to see
that this continuous melody was the thing aimed at, and because Haydn
placed counterpoint in a subsidiary condition he called him a
"charlatan." Poor man, had his sense pierced a little deeper! For Haydn
was--after Bach and Handel and Mozart--one of the finest masters of
counterpoint who have lived. When the time came to write fugues he could
write them with a certain degree of power. But his aim was not writing
fugues any more than an architect's aim is painting in water-colours.
Water-colours are very useful to architects, and they make use of them;
but because they do not rival Turner or David Cox it does not follow
that they are not masters of the art of architecture. Haydn aimed at--or
rather, at this epoch, groped after--a kind of music in which continuous
melody expressive of genuine human feeling was the beginning and the
end, and his mastery of counterpoint, harmony, and all technical devices
were more than sufficient for the purpose.
To my mind he wrote as well for the strings at this time as ever he did.
He could play the violin himself, as the violin was then played, and all
his life, even in quartets, he had to write for players who would be
considered tenth-rate to-day.
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