41.The Spirit's Song

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) wrote approximately fifty original songs for solo voice and keyboard. Composed late in his career (from 1780 on), they are characterized by the same gracefully ranging melodies and imaginative accompaniments seen in his works for the oratorio and operatic stage. However, unlike his vocal/orchestral works, Haydn's solo songs have never achieved wide popularity or a regular place in the repertory of singers. Less forward-looking in style than those of Mozart or Beethoven, they place little emphasis on the unification of music and poetry, and therefore seem stylistically distant from the Romantic lieder that would emerge in the Nineteenth Century. Undoubtedly this is due to Haydn's own lack of affinity for poetry—especially that of his native land—and his preference for the salon-style songs that were fashionable in the late Eighteenth Century. Consequently his songs are universally strophic and instrumental in conception, and feature a nearly constant doubling of vocal melodies in the piano accompaniments.

Though the majority of Haydn's songs are German lieder, better-known and admired are his two books of Canzonettas (simple, strophic songs, often with pastoral themes) written to English poems. He produced them during his prolonged visits to London, most likely at the request of his acquaintance, Mrs. Anne Hunter, whose original texts and adaptations are heavily represented in the collections. Very popular in London at the time of their composition, the Canzonettas suffered serious neglect upon publication in Vienna, largely due to inferior German translations that did not match the stresses and emphases of Haydn's music. Only after the English texts were restored were they seen in the proper light.

The most famous of Haydn's German songs is "Gott, erhalte Franz den Kaiser!", the tune of which has subsequently become the German national anthem, "Deutchland, Deutchland, über alles". Not many composers of lieder can boast a tune so widely recognized and sung.





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