This device
he commonly used, sometimes with fine results. The incessant series of
climaxes, leading us on and keeping us in suspense until a certain point
is reached, then releasing the tension for a moment, and preparing to do
the same again--these he employed to an extent, but not as Beethoven
employed them.
All this Mozart perceived, and made instant use of. As for the
mediocrities for whose benefit Haydn is held to have "stereotyped" the
form, what could they learn from him? I will say what they did learn.
They learnt to take themes which did not sound exactly like the
subjects of a fugue; they laid out their first and their second, and
then they did not know what on earth to do, and footled and stumbled
till it was time for the recapitulation; so that Haydn himself said the
worst of the young men was that they could not stick long enough at
anything to work it out, and no sooner began one thing than they wanted
to be off to another. They were even worse off in their slow movements.
Unlike Mozart, they never discovered that the continuous melody, the
melos, was Haydn's grand secret; and if they had discovered it, they had
not the genius and the simple deep sincerity to make use of the
discovery. That natural sincerity of feeling kept Haydn on the right
path through all the weary Esterhazy years, when he was surrounded by
French influences and every influence that made for artificiality and
falsity.
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