“Haydn often says, that he had more trouble in finding out a mode of representing the waves in a tempest in this opera, than he afterwards had in writing fugues with a double subject. Curtz, who had spirit and taste, was difficult to please; but there was also another obstacle. Neither of the two authors had ever seen either sea or storm. How can a man describe what he knows nothing about? If this happy art could be discovered, many of our great politicians would talk better about virtue. Curtz, all agitation, paced up and down the room, where the composer was seated at the piano forte. ‘Imagine,’ said he, ‘a mountain rising, and then a valley sinking; and then another mountain, and then another valley; the mountains and the valleys follow one after another, with rapidity, and at every moment, alps and abysses succeed each other.’
“This fine description was of no avail. In vain did harlequin add the thunder and lightning. ‘Come describe for me all these horrors,’ he repeated incessantly, ‘but particularly represent distinctly these mountains and valleys.’
“Haydn drew his fingers rapidly over the key board, ran through the semitones, tried abundance of sevenths, passed from the lowest notes of the bass to the highest of the treble. Curtz was still dissatisfied. At last, the young man, out of all patience, extended his hands to the two ends of the harpsichord, and, bringing them rapidly together, exclaimed ‘The devil take the tempest.’ ‘That’s it, that’s it,’ cried the harlequin, springing upon his neck and nearly stifling him. Haydn added, that when he crossed the Straits of Dover, in bad weather, many years afterwards, he laughed during the whole of the passage in thinking of the storm in The Devil on two Sticks.
“‘But how,’ said I to him, ‘is it possible, by sounds, to describe a tempest, and that distinctly too? As this great man is indulgence itself, I added, that, by imitating the peculiar tones of a man in terror or despair, an author of genius may communicate to an auditor the sensations which the sight of a storm would cause; ‘but,’ said I, ‘music can no more represent a tempest, than say ‘Mr. Hadyn lives near the barrier of Schonbrunn.’ ’ ‘You may be right,’ replied he, ‘but recollect, nevertheless, that words and especially scenery guide the imagination of the spectator.’”
Let it be an encouragement to the timidity of youthful genius to see that an eaglet like Haydn has ever groped and flown so sidewise from the aim.
