Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

SYMPHONY 775
been very efficient or well organised. The
standard of performance was evidently rough,
and composers could neither expect much attention
to pianos and fortes, nor any ability to
grapple with technical difficulties among the
players of Hass instruments or violas. The
audiences were critical in the one sense of requiring
good healthy workmanship in the writing
of the pieces—in fact much better than they
would demand in the present day ; but with
regard to deep meaning, refinement, poetical
intention, or originality, they appear to have
oared very little. They wanted to be healthily
pleased and entertained, not stirred with deep
emotion ;
and the purposes of composers in those
days were consequently not exalted to any high
pitch, but were limited to a simple and unpretentious
supply, in accordance with demand and
opportunity. Haydn was influenced by these
considerations till the last. There is always
more fun and gaiety in his music than pensiveness
or serious reflection. But in developing
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the technical part of expression, in proportioning
the means to the end, and in organising the
forces of the orchestra, what he did was of the
utmost importance. It is, however, impossible
to apportion the value of the work of the two
masters. Haydn did a great deal of important
and substantial work before Mozart came into
prominence in the same field. But after the
first great mark had been made by the Paris
Symphony, Mozart seemed to rush to his culmination
; and in the last four of his works reached
a style which appears richer, more sympathetic,
and more complete than anything Haydn could
attain to. Then, again, when he had passed
away, Haydn produced his greatest works. Each
composer had his distinctive characteristics, and
each is delightful in his own way ; but Haydn
would probably not have reached his highest
development without the influence of his more
richly gifted contemporary ;
and Mozart for his
part was undoubtedly very much under the
influence of Haydn at an important part of his
career. The best that can be said by way of
distinguishing their respective shares in the
result is that Mozart's last sympjionies introduced
an intrinsically musical element which
had before been wanting, and showed a supreme
perfection of actual art in their structure ; while