In the Esterházy Palace, Haydn entrusted silence with a rebellion destined to remind the power that art can be supported, but not possessed.
by Marialuisa Veneziano
**************
🎧 Music for reading
To accompany The Adii Symphony, we recommend listening to Final: Soon – Adagio of the Symphony No. 45 in fa diesis minor by Joseph Haydn, in the execution ofAcademy of St Martin in the Fields, direct from Sir Neville Marriner. Almost eight minutes in which the orchestra first burns, then slowly empties: a light, a tool and a musician at a time. The real music that inspired the novella becomes his most secret voice. Click on the arrow of the logo "cuffie", press play and start reading.
Prince Esterházy owned a palace, many horses, a collection of watches and an orchestra.
At least, he was convinced he had all these things the same way.
The horses ran when they were sprouted, the clocks sounded at the established time and the musicians, properly fed and dressed, did what was placed on their laws.
Among them was Elias Hartmann, 19 years old, second violin and owner of an inconvenient amount of thoughts.
The prince never called him Elias.
— According to Violino, slower.
— According to Violino, accompany the Countess.
— According to Violino, you will wear new livery tonight.
Elias obeyed. But every time he felt his name was hanging out the door with his coat.
At court the musicians wore embroidered jackets, white socks and shiny shoes. They had to be elegant, punctual and possibly mute when they didn't play. Nobility loved art, especially when art knew its place and did not ask to sit at the table.
Joseph Haydn, master of the chapel, knew that strange condition well.
He was respected as a composer, applauded as a genius and summoned as a servant when the prince desired a new symphony between soup and roast.
He suffered everything with an irony so discreet that it seemed good education.
— Master — Elias asked him one day — do you consider yourself at the service of the prince?
Haydn raised his eyes from the score.
— Of course.
— Doesn't it weigh you?
— I’m especially impressed when the service coincides with lunchtime.
Then he returned to write.
Elias did not know if he had received an answer or a lesson.
At night he composed in secret. He hid the leaves under the mattress and wrote in the light of a candle consumed, while his companions slept.
He still didn't dream of glory. He wanted something more modest and, for this reason, much more difficult: to see his name above a music born within him.
One afternoon he composed a brief adagio for violin and strings. He started with four hesitant notes, as he walked in front of a closed door, then opened in a wide and painful melody.
He left the manuscript on his letting during the trials.
The next morning he disappeared.
Three days later, during a reception, the plaintiff put a fresh copy in front of him.
— You'll have this.
Elias immediately recognized his notes.
— Where did you find the composition?
— In the musical chapel.
— I wrote it.
The ruler looked at him with the patience reserved for children and servants who confuse a thought with a right.
— Exactly. You wrote it here.
The hall was filled with nobles. They talked about hunting, weddings and returns while the orchestra agreed on the instruments. A duchess laughed so hard that the horn could have asked her lessons.
Elias raised the bow.
When he began to play, however, the conversations were lost.
The melody crossed the hall and did what the music does in its best moments: it forced people very confident to hear something they had not ordered.
In the end, a Countess approached the prince.
— Who composed this song?
Elias inspired.
The prince answered before him:
— It belongs to my chapel.
He said «Hayd». He said «Elias Hartmann».
He said it belonged to the palace.
Like a tapestry.
Like a fountain.
Like a particularly plastered lever.
The next day Elias found the manuscript copied on precious paper, decorated with the coat of arms of the Esterházy. He had to be donated to a visiting ambassador.
The name of the prince appeared on top.
The author was not there.
Elias took a pen and wrote down:
Elias Hartmann, musician.
The steward read those words. Then he took out a small knife and scraped off the name.
The paper remained clearer at that point, like a scar.
— What is composed at the service of His Highness belongs to His Highness.
— Thoughts?
— Don't be insolent.
— I'm just trying to figure out what part of my head the prince's possessions begin.
The steward roasted.
— You're paid, dressed and fed.
— Horses are also fed. Yet no one argues that they have built the roads that run.
The line went around the orchestra before night. The steward, however, did not find it funny. The intentions rarely appreciate irony: they fear that it is a lock of which they do not possess the key.
Elias decided he wouldn't play anymore.
But the old cellist Márton stopped him.
— Can you afford to be fired?
Elias did.
— I have three children. The phagottist keeps his mother. The horner still has to pay the doctor. Your dignity is a noble thing, boy. Just try not to feed it with the bread of others.
Those words burned him more than the humiliation he suffered.
He understood now that even courage could become arrogant, when he claimed to choose the price others would have to pay.
He took the unbridled manuscript and reached Haydn.
The composer read it without talking. He argued on the point where the name was erased.
— I want to leave — Elias said.
— You can.
— That's it?
Haydn put the sheet.
— Being right is a very economical consolation. He doesn't pay the trip and he doesn't change who's wrong.
— So I should stay and be quiet?
— I didn't say that. I said a banged door frees those coming out, but rarely educates those who stay.
Haydn opened a new score.
On the forehead was written: Symphony in fa diesis minor.
— The prince has held us for months in the summer residence. The musicians want to return to their families. Requests have been ignored.
— So?
Haydn unleashed the pages.
— Then we'll do what's best.
— Are we going to eat?
— We'll stop doing this.
In the final movement, the parts of the instruments ended one after another. Every musician would have turned off the candle on his ledge and left the room.
— Is it a symphony that surrenders? — He asked Elias.
— No. It is a symphony that obeys with such precision to make it impossible to punish it.
— And you think the prince will understand?
Haydn smiled.
— Principles include many things. Usually a few minutes after all the others understood them.
In the evening of the concert the salon shone hundreds of candles.
The prince sat in the center, surrounded by guests convinced that the world had been created to offer them a good view.
Elias was wearing livery.
In the lining he sewed the paper fragment on which his name had been erased.
The symphony began with energy. The orchestra advanced compact, disciplined, magnificently captive.
The prince was pleased.
Then the last movement came.
The oboist ended his part.
Close the score.
He turned the candle off.
And he went out.
The prince turned to Haydn.
— Your oboist is leaving.
Haydn continued to lead.
— It seems so, Your Highness.
— Why?
— Maybe he's done.
Shortly after the phagottist came out.
Then a hornet.
Then the other.
The audience smiled. Sounded like a theatrical find.
But when he digs the double bass, no one laughs.
Every musician who left the room left behind an empty chair and a small column of smoke.
Music became thinner.
One less voice.
A light less.
One less man.
When his turn arrived, Elias placed the violin in the custody.
He slowly took off the livery and left it in the chair.
He was wearing a simple white shirt.
The prince rose.
— Where do you think you're going, Second Violino?
Elias stopped.
The room held its breath.
— Elias, Your Highness.
— What did you say?
— My name is Elias.
He directed the livery and the instrument.
— Second Violin stays here. You can own these.
Then he went out.
Only two violinists remained in the hall.
They played a slow, almost naked sentence.
It seemed like someone's voice that, after having long asked for permission, had finally chosen the way.
A candle is lost.
Then the last.
The note died.
The prince looked at the hall.
The chairs were his.
The laws were his.
The instruments, the liveries, the candles and even the palace were his.
And yet he had no music.
— Get them back. — he ordered.
Haydn lowered his hands.
— I can ask men to come back, Your Highness. I can't command the music.
— I pay them!
— Pay their job. It is the only part of them that has ever belonged to you.
The prince saw the livery abandoned by Elias. From the liner, a sheet of paper was protruding.
He extracts it.
He recognized the adage manuscript and the white wound left by the scraped name.
— This composition is mine — He said.
Haydn observed the empty orchestra.
— So, Your Highness, let her play.
The prince remained silent.
For the first time he realized that you can possess everything and have nothing more capable of living.
The next morning Elias was summoned.
He entered without livery, of course he was fired.
The prince had in front of the manuscript. A small strip of paper was glued to the scrapped point.
It was written:
Elias Hartmann.
— Mr Hartmann — said the prince, and those two words cost him more than one whole orchestra — musicians can leave.
Elias just called the boss.
— The orchestra of master Haydn, Highness.
The prince shook his lips.
Haydn, at the bottom of the room, examined the ceiling with great interest.
— The orchestra of master Haydn — The prince finally ran.
The musicians left that morning.
When they returned to court weeks later, their names appeared on the program. The prince had not suddenly become a philosopher, and the artists were not yet completely free men.
But something broke.
Not a rope.
Not a law.
A habit.
Since then the prince continued to pay the music, but no longer dared to believe that he possessed those who created it.
And when he called Elias, he never said «Second Violin».
He said his name.
To support art does not mean to possess who creates it. Money can buy the time and work of an artist, but not his thought or his dignity. A man can serve music without becoming a servant of those who pay it.
BOX HISTORY
Leave a comment