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 PRAISE FOR PHILIP CHASE

In The Way of Edan, Philip Chase has written a highly

accomplished first novel. The storytelling is top-notch. There’s
a gravitas in the writing that put me in mind of Tolkien, with
definite shades of Katherine Kerr, along with John Gwynne.
This is a novel born of love for the story.
— MARK LAWRENCE

What a wonderful read! Prose that is smooth and accessible,

a world with a weight and depth to it, and a gripping and
emotional story. There's a lot to love here. Lovely to see the
Anglo-Saxon influences that gave me a real sense of time and
place, and the storytelling was done with a deft, assured
hand.
— JOHN GWYNNE

The Way of Edan encompasses an expanding war driven by

voracious religious fanaticism. Young heroes emerge, bonded
by loyalty, in an age of ripening prophecy. Traditional fantasy
readers will find elves with a fresh spin expanding the familiar
bounds of individuality, and women, old and young, who
wield magic in positions of power.
— JANNY WURTS

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 PRAISE FOR PHILIP CHASE (CONTINUED)

An impressive debut novel. Chase deftly weaves mystery and

action with profound world-building. Deeply realized and
compelling.
— IAN C. ESSLEMONT

Gemmell’s characters have invaded the landscape of Tolkien

in this immersive, addictive, poetic read. An instant classic
that will have fantasy and historical fiction fans desperate for
more.
— ED FROM THE BROTHERS GWYNNE

Every element of storytelling comes together to weave an

engaging and immersive story that is an absolute joy to
follow.
— WILL FROM THE BROTHERS GWYNNE

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THE WAY OF EDAN

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Book One of The Edan Trilogy

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PHILIP CHASE

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Copyright © 2023 by Philip Chase
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.
Created with Vellum

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people — family, friends, and students — have helped me in

the crafting of this story by reading it and offering their
encouragement, without which I would have found it far more
difficult to persevere. The numerous friends I have made on
“BookTube” in recent years have aided me in ways they will never
know to get this book to the finish line. I am more grateful for their
kindness than I can express.

Special thanks to Simon Lipskar, who helped me believe I am a

writer.

I could not be happier with the beautiful cover that Kyra Gregory
and Jack Shepherd created, and Jack brought Eormenlond to life
with his fantastic map. Jimmy Nutts is a hero for helping me with my
author website, and what an honor for The Edan Trilogy to be Allen
Walker’s first (but surely not last) undertaking as an audiobook
narrator! My thanks to Dan Koontz for his keen-eyed proofreading.
Also vital was Vaughn Roycroft, Thiago Abdalla, and Ryan Cahill’s
helpful advice for navigating the self-publishing seas.

There can be few feelings to compare with having people whose

writing one admires say kind things about one’s book; my gratitude
to those authors who have shown such generosity to me is
immense.

Finally, while many authors mention friends on pages like this, few
have the opportunity to bring up their very own Nemesis. Thank
you, A.P. Canavan, from the bottom of my nefarious heart for the
uncountable and illuminating critical insights that I could only refer
to as fireballs.

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 For Rama

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OceanofPDF.com
 CONTENTS

Prologue
1. Troubles from Outside
2. Where Memories Dwell
3. The Hunt
4. The Awakening
5. Under the Stars
6. The Powers in Torrhelm
7. A Dawn Attack
8. Secret Knowledge
9. The Way Back
10. Woven of Words
11. At the Crossroads
12. The Call to War
13. The Old Works of Giants
14. The Eternal Worship
15. In the Company of Mercenaries
16. Past, Present, and Future
17. In the Monster’s Clutches
18. Chasing the Impossible
19. Stalking the Enemy
20. At Bay in Caergilion
21. The War of the Way
22. The Choice
Epilogue

About the Author

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 PROLOGUE

D eathlike silence descended upon the temple. It began with a

hush when Finan and his two companions approached the
steps leading up to the columned building. With each marble
step they trod, the merchants and citizens behind them in the
courtyard quieted more and more, their loud bargaining and
conversing of moments before cut off and forgotten. By the time the
three priests reached the top step, an eerie stillness had seized
everything. Each of Finan’s labored breaths seemed drawn out to an
eternity, each intake laden with the scent of smoke and spices from
the food stalls behind him mixed with the stench of what he carried.
Beneath his white woolen robe, sweat trickled down his back. He
tried to steady his breathing and calm his trembling body, and then,
in unison with his companions, he turned around.
A crowd had formed within moments while Egbert, Deda, and he
climbed the steps up to the temple, and more onlookers were
arriving. Dozens of pairs of dark eyes gazed up at Finan and his two
companions, squinting with curiosity, surprise, and hostility. For a
generation, the Caergilese had grown accustomed to missionary
priests from Torrlond preaching on the street corners of Iarfaen, but
the sight of three of them before the doorway of the temple
dedicated to their goddess was another matter.
Egbert shattered the silence, crying out his sermon.
 “Edan sends us to bring His light to your darkness, His truth to
your ignorance!” The Caergilese frowned at the three of them in
confusion and rising anger, the murmurs in their tongue growing
louder until they vied with Egbert’s impassioned words, which
washed over Finan almost without comprehension.
His senses were alert and numb all at once, as if he were not
part of the scene but an observer hovering over it. Some distant
instinct of self-preservation screamed at him that he should not be
doing this, that he should abandon his two companions and flee this
place. Such thoughts were unworthy. They had begun the thing, and
it would run its course. Feeling like a rider on a galloping horse with
no reins, Finan gritted his teeth and reminded himself that they were
doing Edan’s will. Give me strength, Almighty One.
The three priests of the Way from Torrlond stood in their white
robes beneath the portico screening the entrance to the temple of
Anghara, one of the two heathen gods the Caergilese worshipped in
their ignorance. They faced the throng gathering before them in the
cobbled courtyard without the temple. Opposite them on the other
side of the courtyard, beyond all the merchants’ stalls and carts,
loomed the columned temple of Oruma. Together, the two structures
formed one of the holiest sites in Iarfaen, Caergilion’s chief city.
Finan and his companions had come there in dedicated service to
Edan, in accordance with the Supreme Priest Bledla’s instructions.
The heavy wooden bucket’s handle dug into Finan’s clammy
palm, and the tired muscles in his forearm began to ache and quiver.
He wrinkled his nose as he shifted the bucket to his other hand,
swallowing and blinking while studying the Caergilese in their queer,
colorful tunics and dresses. There was Torrlonder blood in some of
these folk if the tales told true, but Finan would not have guessed it
from their brown skin and dark hair. Nevertheless, he had come to
do his part in saving them. Your will be done, Edan.
A few in the crowd directed their glares at him, but most scowled
at Egbert while the old priest thundered words that perhaps one in
ten of the Caergilese understood. On Egbert’s other side, his face
near as pale as his robe, Deda prayed aloud for Edan to give them
courage, his words gathering speed as the throng grew noisier and
some of the Caergilese began cursing them and hurling insults.
Spittle flew from Egbert’s lips while he imparted Edan’s truth to
the unbelievers. “When the Kingdom of the Eternal takes hold over
Eormenlond, only those who follow Edan, only the righteous, will
dwell with Him in bliss! All others, believers in false gods and
worshippers of demons, will gnash their teeth and wail in torment.
Abandon your false gods, and embrace the truth. The time is nigh!
So says the Supreme Priest Bledla, Edan’s chosen.”
Finan closed his eyes and, even as his body continued to
tremble, a sense of acceptance and peace welled inside him with the
memory of the supreme priest’s words when he sent them forth
from Torrhelm. He entrusted this mission to me. To us. We will not
fail him. We will not fail Edan.
How proud he had been that day! It had been a trial to maintain
his humility afterward, but he knew why Bledla had selected him and
the others. The gift was not strong in any of them, but they were all
firm in their faith. This was how he could best serve Edan. Not only
that, but, in obeying, he was doing what was best for the Caergilese,
though they could not have known that. What they were committing
was an act of love, but the Caergilese present this day would never
understand. All that matters is that Edan knows.
He opened his eyes and smiled. Egbert ceased speaking and
glanced at him, nodding at the bucket. The crowd below them had
become a furious, boiling mob, with many screaming and raising
their fists. A small group of Caergilese soldiers in their red tunics had
arrived and were barking commands while pushing their way to the
front of the crowd, no doubt to arrest the three trespassing priests.
No matter. Edan would deliver them.
It was time.
Finan’s smile broadened as he returned Egbert’s nod, and then
he took up the heavy bucket with both hands. The putrid reek of it
wafted up his nose as he raised it level with his face. With all his
might, and perhaps with the strength Edan lent him, he cried out
and heaved the contents of the bucket toward the temple of
Anghara.
Other documents randomly have
different content
and arouses religious feeling. Oratorio was his special gift to the
world and one never hears the name of Handel without thinking of
The Messiah.
Handel seemed to reunite the forms: oratorio and opera, under his
massive will. At first some of his oratorios were given in costume,
showing the influence of opera.
Handel had many enemies in England, but he also had friends.
Although imperious, he had a sweet side, and made friends with
humble folk who loved music, even though he hobnobbed with
royalty. Thomas Britton, a coal heaver, his friend, is sketched by an
artist of the day in a picture where Handel is playing The
Harmonious Blacksmith to Alexander Pope, the Duchess of
Queensbury, Colley Cibber and other famous folk. Yet he stormed at
everyone and even royalty “quaked in their boots” and were forced to
behave themselves at rehearsals and concerts which Handel directed.
Accused of using someone’s melody, he answered, “That pig
couldn’t use such a melody as well as I could!” He helped himself to
so many that he was called the “Great Plagiarist.”
His latter life was spent quietly, with a few intimate friends,
drinking his beer and smoking his beloved pipe. He was always
generous and as he grew older seemed to become kindlier and softer.
He contributed largely to the Foundling Asylum and even played the
organ there.
He wanted to die on Good Friday, “in hopes,” he said, “of meeting
his good God, his sweet Lord and Saviour on the day of his
resurrection,” and on Good Friday, April 6th, 1759, he died.
Christoph Willibald Gluck—Father of Modern Opera
1714–1787

Now we come to the next genius, Christoph Gluck (1714–1787)

born when George Frederick Handel was twenty-nine years old. He
also attacked the frivolous drift of his time, but in another field from
Handel and Bach, and gave the fashionable, aimless Italian opera its
death blow for all time.
Gluck’s life is different from Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and
Beethoven as you will see later when you have read about all of these.
For, until he was almost forty years old, Gluck did nothing to make
him great, whereas these other men showed from their earliest years
that they were unusual.
Gluck belongs to two periods for his life bridges Bach’s and
Haydn’s. You will see how he first belonged to the frivolous fashion-
loving composers like Hasse, Jomelli and Piccinni, and how later he
blossomed into the great renewer and constructor of opera and
escapes into a class of his own! His is the most remarkable instance
of a man who starts with an ordinary talent, and later in life grasps a
vision that never came to him in his early youth and which was not
caught by others in his day.
Furthermore he was able to carry his point and not merely see the
vision and let it go by. But first let us see how his life unfolded, for a
man’s life helps us to understand his works.
Christoph Willibald Gluck, born July 2nd, 1714, at Weidenwang,
near Nüremberg, was the son of a gamekeeper, who moved from
estate to estate in the service of princes and nobles, and at the time of
Christoph’s birth, was ranger to Eugene, Prince of Savoy. So, this
little boy destined to become the great Chevalier von Gluck, was a
child of the people even as was Haydn and others.
 Gluck Starts Traveling

When he was three years old he was taken to Bohemia, (now

Czecho-Slovakia), for his father entered the service of Prince
Lobkowitz, a great music lover, of whom you will hear again. His
parents were quite poor, yet it is remarkable that above everything
else they gave Christoph a good education and at twelve he went to a
Jesuit school near Eisenberg, the home of Prince Lobkowitz.
Here he learned to sing and to play the organ, the violin, the ’cello
and the clavier. He was diligent and became most proficient and was
loved and admired by the school fathers. But little did they dream
that some day he was to write classic operas, based not on Christian
stories but the pagan dramas of the Greeks!
When nearly nineteen, he left the seminary and said good-bye to
the Church of St. Ignatius and went to Prague. To support himself
and to carry on his scientific and musical studies he gave lessons,
played for rustic festivals and earned money the best way he could,
until Prince Lobkowitz became interested in him and introduced him
to the musical circle at court. Here he met Count Melzi who took him
to Milan, where he was taught by Giovanni Battista Sammartini, a
celebrated organist and teacher of counterpoint. After four years of
study he completed his musical education.
In Milan, he wrote his first opera, Artaserse which was performed
in 1741. Metastasio, the popular librettist, wrote the words to
Artaserse, as he did for many of Gluck’s works written in the loose
style of the Italian opera. He was now twenty-eight and in the five
years spent here, he composed eight operas, through which he
gained great popularity. But not yet had it come to him to
revolutionize opera; he simply used the old pattern which was really
nothing but groups of songs, recitatives and choruses having very
little connection except to give the performers the chance to do
musical feats to amaze the audience with their skill. The story of
these operas, meagre as it was, stopped short, for some long and
elaborate cadenza, and then it went on again with no thought of the
meaning of the drama but rather to tickle the taste of the audience
and the performer. The orchestra, too, was a step-child, for no one
cared where it came in as long as it was politely subdued, keeping the
singers on the key, and doing its best to be heard only when bidden.
So, Gluck followed these ideas in the beginning and perhaps it was
better that he did, otherwise he might never have realized how far
opera had strayed from the ideals of Monteverde.
Having eight operas to his credit, he began to get commissions
from other cities and countries, and next accepted an invitation, in
1745, to go to London as composer of opera at the Haymarket
Theatre. In 1746 he wrote La Caduta de Giganti (The Fall of the
Giants), with no doubt a libretto of Metastasio’s, then he gave his
Artamene and was assisted in their production by Handel, who is
supposed to have treated the works with contempt. He is said to have
exclaimed, “Even my shoe-black can write better counterpoint than
Gluck.” But we must remember that Gluck had not yet become the
great Gluck. His visit to England was fruitful, for Gluck heard and
digested the great oratorios of Handel, and realized that the voice
and orchestra might be handled the same way in opera. No doubt his
mission was beginning to dawn on him; it came, not as a great
revelation, but gradually.
 He Makes Success of Failure

Another thing that gave him a push forward and shows how great
people can make a success of failure: he was asked to write a
pasticcio (Italian word meaning a meat-pie), or a string of melodies,
very fashionable in his day. He strung together his best airs from his
Italian operas, and called it Pyramus and Thisbe, but it was a dismal
failure. “Ah, ha!” he must have thought, “why shouldn’t this musical
drivel fail, for it is naught but trash, and with nothing that is needed
to make a good literary drama.” So this was one of the experiences
that led him to reform opera, making the words fit the music and not
stopping a performance, so that a popular soloist could sing a
meaningless trill and then start again with the other part of the word,
—the way that opera was being written at that time.
After his London ups and downs he went to Paris and heard the
operas of Rameau. He realized now the value of musical declamation
and recitative to the meaning and action of opera if used with
thought, and he was not slow in taking suggestions.
Gluck was probably the most all round man of his day, for he knew
literature and science as did few musicians. He knew all the
influential people in the arts, sciences, and music in London,
Hamburg, Dresden and Vienna, and his home was a center of
learned and delightful people. When in Vienna but a short time, he
was commissioned to write an opera and he produced, with success,
La Semiramide, after which he went to Copenhagen. His next opera
Telemacco in which he began to work out his new ideas was well
received, in Rome and Naples.
In 1750 after many disappointments, he was married to a lady he
had long adored. They lived happily together, for Marriane Pergin
not only brought him money which was a great joy, but was always
his devoted and understanding help-mate. She was an accomplished
woman, and a companion that many might envy. But, sad to say,
they had no children, so they adopted a niece of Christoph’s, a lovely
little girl with great musical talent. The three lived lovingly together
until the poor little child sickened and died, making the Glucks most
unhappy, for they adored her, as is often the case, even more than if
she had been their own child.
In 1751 Gluck journeyed to Naples. Didn’t he travel a lot in the
days of the stage coach and brigands! In the same year he became
conductor to Prince Frederick at Vienna and in 1754 was officially
attached to the opera, and Maria Theresa made him court chapel
master.
Soon after, the Pope, pleased with what he had done in Rome,
made him Chevalier of the Golden Spur and from that time he always
styled himself Ritter (Chevalier) von Gluck.
In Il re pastore (The Shepherd King), we see the dawning of
Gluck’s best period of writing (1756). The overture is better music
than he had written before, and from this time on, Gluck became the
genius in the opera world for which he is known. From 1756 to 1760
he lived apart from the world studying and after this he began to
broadcast his ideas in writing and composing.
When the Archduke Joseph of Austria, afterwards the Emperor,
married Isabella of Bourbon, Gluck wrote Tetede which was
performed with great pomp. After this he wrote the ballet Don
Giovanni, or The Libertine, particularly interesting, for it certainly
gave Mozart an idea for his own great work Don Giovanni.
Again our “wandering minstrel” moved, this time to Bologna
where he conducted a new opera which, strange to say, showed not a
sign of his new ideas!
 “Orpheus and Euridice” is Born

Soon he met Calzabigi, another librettist, with whom he wrote his

first epoch-making opera Orpheus and Euridice. Although in some
parts it is written like the older operas, he used many of his new
ideas. The public at first were bewildered but they liked it. The next
opera written with his new librettist was Alceste, so different was it,
and so full of his best thought that the public did not like it. The
pleasure-loving people went to be amused and heard music almost as
serious as oratorio. It was austere, and its climax was not
satisfactory. Yet it and Orpheus and Euridice mark the birth of music
drama which Mozart and Wagner developed further.
In Orpheus and Euridice the chorus was an important part of the
drama as it had been in the old Greek drama from which Gluck took
many of his stories; and was not something dragged in to fill up
space. Instead, too, of the over-embroidered arias they were simple
and expressive, and the characters were real living beings, instead of
figures on which to drape showy melodies. Naturally, the composers
were jealous of him and went so far as to say that the principal singer
had written Orpheus and Euridice.
Gluck said of his Alceste: “I seek to put music to its true purpose;
that is, to support the poem, and thus to strengthen the expression of
the feelings and the interest of the situation without interrupting the
action.... In short, I have striven to abolish all those bad habits which
sound reasoning and true taste have been struggling against now for
so long in vain.” He abolished the unnecessary cadenza, a fancy, trilly
part composed by the soloist himself and used just before the close of
a piece. You will see in a later chapter how Beethoven dealt with it.
Happily Gluck and Calzabigi still continued working together and
in 1770 he wrote Paride and Elena (Paris and Helen) which proved
Gluck to be a writer of beautiful romantic song.
By now Vienna and Paris were enthusiastic about him, yet he was
severely criticized because he dared to write and compose differently
from everyone else. The adventurer into new paths must always
expect trouble from those who have not caught up with him.
 Trouble Brews for Gluck

Now our traveler goes to Paris where he presents Iphigenia in

Aulis. The story was taken from a play of the French dramatist
Racine. Although this was the fourth work in Gluck’s new style it was
not as good as the others. His enemies did their utmost to hurt him
as they resented his coming into Paris to reform French opera. And
as the musicians and singers were not good artists, it was almost
impossible to give it well, and probably it would never have reached
the stage had it not been for Marie Antoinette the French Queen who
was later guillotined. She had been a real friend and pupil of Gluck,
when a young princess in Vienna. Nevertheless the opera pleased its
audiences, and it paid well, and Gluck was given a new court office in
Vienna.
In 1776 the trouble that had been brewing with Gluck’s opponents
came to a climax. Piccinni was his great Italian rival and the city of
Paris was torn as to who was the better composer. All the literary
men and the court were divided into factions, one for and one against
Gluck. Some great men, including Jean Jacques Rousseau were
Gluckists, while others of importance were Piccinnists. Never had
there been so great a contention for musical glory or struggle against
new ideas. It was a most extraordinary thing, but it does show that
there was great musical interest or people would never have wasted
so much time in argument and in writing for or against these men.
Finally it came to a head, and it was decided to give them both the
same libretto of Iphigenia in Tauris to see who could write the better
opera. Gluck completed his within the year and after nearly three
years, Piccinni finished his. They were both performed and needless
to say Gluck won the award and even Piccinni said himself that
Gluck’s was the better. It is nice to know that after Gluck’s death,
Piccinni tried to collect funds to raise a memorial as a tribute to him!
So artistic rivalry need not dim admiration.
In Iphigenia in Tauris again the master rises to great heights. His
overture was splendid, his orchestral color was superb. He pictured
the different characteristics of the various groups of people and of
the individuals themselves in word and music as it never had been
done before.
He wrote Armide in 1777. It did not succeed although it was very
lovely and dreamy and in it, he suggested the sounds of babbling
brooks and the song of the nightingales.
Gluck wrote thirty operas, seven of which are in his new style: Don
Giovanni, Orpheus and Euridice, Paris and Helen, Alceste,
Iphigenia in Tauris, Iphigenia in Aulis and Armide.
 New Paths

And thus this great path-breaker advanced opera seria (grand

opera).
The old sinfonia in three movements which opened the opera,
disappeared, and instead came the introduction or overture,
suggesting the opera itself. He taught and wrote that composers
could do anything to assist the action of the opera; he elevated the
story to an important place; the characters in the plot were thought
of as people and not as puppets, and they were studied individually
and not as machinery only. The situations in the story governed the
kind of music he used and he tried hard to make the orchestra a
main part of the opera. It seems odd that nobody had thought of this
before. Yet you have seen how much time had been given to the voice
throughout the ages, and how long it had taken instruments to arrive
at their full importance. So we see Gluck improving as he worked
with a better librettist. From now the opera writer had to use thought
in composition, as he would in writing a play.
 A Very Cross Conductor!

But Gluck had trouble with the singers on account of his

innovations. He was the crossest conductor of his time, would allow
no one to dictate to him, and scolded the singers as they had never
been scolded before.
He must have looked droll conducting, for he used to take off his
wig during rehearsals, and wrap a cloth about his head to keep the
draughts from fanning him! He would rage if the singers tried to do
what they had been permitted to do in other operas! Some singers
demanded extra pay when Gluck conducted. Sometimes he would
repeat a passage twenty or thirty times and no pianissimo was soft
enough and no fortissimo loud enough! Someone said of him while
he was conducting, “He lives and dies with his heroines, he rages
with Achilles, weeps with Iphigenia and in the dying scene of Alceste
throws himself back in his chair and becomes as a corpse.”
Otherwise he was always the kind soul who attracted everybody
from Marie Antoinette down. She used to receive him in her boudoir
so that they could enjoy conversation without court formalities.
One day two prima donnas refused to obey him when rehearsing
Iphigenia, and he said: “Mesdemoiselles, I have been summoned
here to Paris especially to produce Iphigenia. If you sing, well and
good, but if not, that is your business; only I shall then seek an
audience with the Queen, and inform her that the opera cannot be
performed, and I shall put myself into my carriage and straightway
leave for Vienna.” You may know that the ladies did their best!
In closing let us tell you what Berlioz, a master of orchestration,
said of Gluck’s orchestration in Alceste: “Of its kind I know nothing
more dramatic, nothing more terror-inspiring.” And this was said of
a man who had only the simplest orchestra with which to work. After
much fighting, he was the first to introduce into the orchestra the
kettle-drums and cymbals, which moderns have used with grandeur.
Gluck lived to see his own success, but the Piccinni strife and the
jealousies may have weakened his constitution, for he died rather
suddenly in 1787, a few weeks after the first performance of Mozart’s
Don Giovanni.
 There are many memorials in Europe to Gluck, not the least being
his bust which stands beside Lully and Rameau in the Grand Opera
of Paris.
 Public Concerts

It is very hard to realize that time was when there were no public
concerts. Music was confined for so many centuries to the churches,
to the public squares, to the King’s Chamber, or to the ball rooms of
wealthy nobles, that it had not become the democratic art that it is
now. Of course the first opera houses in Italy had been steps in the
direction of bringing music to the people. The concerts begun by the
Danish organist, Buxtehude, in Lübeck about 1673, and the
Tonkünstler-societät in Vienna of the same period were the first
public concerts. In England, John Banister started concerts at about
the same time, which were the first to admit an audience by payment
of a fee. Handel’s friend, Thomas Britton, the coal-heaver, gave
concerts at his home for 10 shillings the series!
The 18th century saw a great development in giving public
concerts. In France, the Concerts Spirituels were begun in 1725. The
object of these were to give music to the people on the days of
religious festivals when the opera house was closed. There were
about 24 concerts a year; the political events of 1791 put an end to
the society but it had already given the people a taste for concerts,
and many new societies grew out of it. The festivals of Three Choirs
in West England (see page 190) were founded in 1724, and the
Academy of Ancient Music in 1710. The Musikverein in Leipsic was
founded in 1743 and was later turned into the famous Gewandhaus
concerts in 1781.
This movement for public concerts went hand in hand with the
development of instruments and the perfecting of performers. In fact
the word concert came from “consort—the union or symphony of
various instruments playing in concert to one tune.”
 The Mannheim School

The symphony came to life in Germany. Paul Landormy in his

History of Music tells us that it was the time of the “poor scholars”
who were educated free from expense in the schools with the
understanding that they were to learn the “musician’s trade” and
take part in the concerts organized by the cities and the courts. Thus
symphony orchestras grew up all over Germany,—Munich, Stuttgart,
Dresden, Darmstadt, Hamburg where Telemann conducted, in
Leipsic, Berlin and Mannheim.
In Mannheim appeared the most important group of composers,
known as the Mannheim School, and many wrote the early
symphonies which led from the works of Bach to those of Haydn and
Mozart. The best known of these composers are: Johann Stamitz
(1717–1757), Franz Xavier Richter (1709–1789), Anton Filtz,
Christian Cannabich, Ignaz Holzbauer, Ernst Eichner and Giovanni
Battista Toeschi. Under the direct influence of the Mannheim School
were: François Joseph Gossec (1734–1829), a Belgian living in Paris
who wrote many symphonies; Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) known
as one of the first writers of chamber music in the form used by the
classic writers; Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1701–1775) of Milan;
the sons of Bach, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, and Joseph and
Michael Haydn.
From the painting
by J. B. Greuze, in
the Louvre, Paris.

Chevalier Christoph Willibald von Gluck.

Father of Modern Opera.
From a statue by
Barrias, in the
Luxembourg
Gallery, Paris.

The Boy Mozart.

 CHAPTER XX
“Papa” Haydn and Mozart—the Genius

Franz Joseph Haydn

1732–1809

About the time in history when Franz Joseph Haydn was born, the
world was very much upset. No one knew what to think or how. It
was a time of battle and struggle as he was born in the midst of the
Seven Years’ War and lived during the French Revolution. Everyone
except for a few great persons felt bitter and discontented and doubt
was everywhere. This seems to be the way wars and conflicts affect
all peoples and it is why wars are so damaging.
Yet out of this mixture of feeling and thinking, the great classic
period of music was created by such men as Bach and Haydn and
Mozart and the finishing touches were put on it by Beethoven, the
colossus.
Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau (1732), a little town in
Austria near Vienna. His father was a wheelwright and his mother
was a very good cook. Beethoven’s mother, too, was a professional
cook.
These simple parents, his brothers and sisters, measuring not a
baker’s, but a wheelwright’s dozen, had an hour or two of music
every evening after the hard day’s work, and Mathias, the father,
played the harp and sang. It was during these evenings that little
Joseph’s father noticed that at the age of six he was passionately fond
of music.
One time at a festival the drummer failed to appear and there was
no one who could play for the choristers who were to march through
the town. His teacher, Frankh, called Joseph and showed him how to
make the drum stroke and told him to practice it. When he was left
by himself he found a meal tub, over which he stretched a cloth, put
it on a stool and drummed with such vigor that the whole thing
toppled over and he and his drum were covered with meal! But he
learned to drum! And the people laughed when in this solemn church
festival, the little six year old Joseph was seen drumming the big
drum carried by a hunchback in front of him. The drums on which he
played are still at Hainburg. But, we forget, we have not brought him
from Rohrau!
Not long before J. M. Frankh, a relative, came to visit the Haydns,
and it was decided that he should take Joseph to Hainburg to teach
him. The excitement, of course, was great and little Joseph felt very
important with all the hustle and bustle preparing for his departure.
Little did Saperle (his nickname) realize what a hard master he was
getting in Frankh, who only cared for the pay he received from
Joseph’s father. Nevertheless he learned much and showed great
talent while at Hainburg and one day a great thing happened.
Reutter, the organist of St. Stephen’s in Vienna, visited Frankh and
as they talked of music the conversation turned to the choir school
which Reutter directed. Frankh sent for Joseph, a slight, dark haired,
dark eyed little boy, and Reutter asked him to read a piece of music
at sight. Joseph looked at it and said: “How can I, when my teacher
couldn’t?” Yet, Joseph did sing it sweetly and he entered the choir
school. Here his life was a misery, for Reutter was harsh and
unsympathetic, but soon Joseph’s hard life in the choir school was
over, for one very cold winter night, he felt a little frisky, as many a
healthy lad does, and pulled off the wig of a man in the choir.
Reutter, who had wanted an excuse to rid himself of Joseph, because
his voice had begun to break, threw him out into the cold. Poor
Saperle had no other place to go and wandered about all night, until
he met his acquaintance Spangler, a tenor who was very poor and so
had sympathy with Haydn. He took him home to live with him and
his wife and child in his attic,—one small room with no comfort and
no privacy. All this time young Haydn was forced to earn his daily
bread by teaching as much as he could, playing for weddings,
baptisms, funerals, festivals, dances and street serenadings. This
street serenading was a sweet and pretty custom of the time.
One night Haydn and some other youths serenaded Kurz, a
prominent comedian. Kurz, pleased by the music below his window,
called to the lads: “Whose music is that?” “Joseph Haydn’s,” called
back Haydn. “Who is he and where?” asked Kurz. “Down here, I am
Haydn,” said Joseph. Kurz invited him upstairs and Haydn, at the
age of seventeen, received a commission for a comic opera, which
had two special performances.
 All this time he mixed with the poor and laboring people, and their
songs became his songs, and his heart was full of their frolics and
their pains. He was of the people and was so filled with their humor
that later he was called the father of humor in music.
Soon, in order to be alone, and to work in peace, he took a room in
another attic, and bade good-bye to his very good friends. His room
was cold in winter and let in the rains and snows, but it did have a
spinet on which Haydn was allowed to play, and fortunately
Metastasio the librettist lived in this house. Here Haydn studied the
works of Karl Philip Emanuel Bach, Fuchs’ Gradus ad Parnassum
(Steps to Parnassus, Parnassus meaning the mountain upon which
the Greek Muses lived and so comes to mean the home of learning).
He practised too, during this time, on any instrument he could find
and learned so much that he became the founder of the modern
orchestra.
When Metastasio discovered that there was a hard working
musician in his house he met him and then introduced him to
Porpora the greatest Italian singing teacher in Vienna. Not long after
meeting him, Porpora entrusted to his care Marianne Van Martines,
his ten year old pupil, the future musical celebrity. At seventeen
Marianne wrote a mass which was used at St. Michael’s Church and
she became the favorite singer and player of Empress Maria Theresa.
You see women even in those days composed and performed!
So began Haydn’s successes. Porpora engaged him as accompanist,
and treated him half way between a valet and a musician, but
Haydn’s sweet nature carried him through all unpleasantnesses and
he was so anxious to learn and to earn his six ducats that he did not
care if he did have to eat with the servants.
In 1751–2, he wrote his first mass, his first string quartet, and his
first comic opera for Kurz, The Crooked Devil, the music of which
has been lost. Soon after he met Gluck at the concerts of the Prince of
Hildburghausen, where Haydn acted as accompanist; at the prince’s
house too, he met Ditter von Dittersdorf, the violinist. The princes
and nobles of these days did much for music for it was usually at
their homes and under their guidance that the composers received
opportunities to work.
Nevertheless, we see Haydn during these days slaving to make his
daily bread, but with the money he made he bought books on music
theory and held himself sternly down to hard work, morning, noon,
and night.
In 1755 Baron von Fürnburg, a music amateur, who gave concerts
at his home, asked him to compose for him, and he wrote eighteen
quartets, six scherzandi for wind instruments (the ancestors of his
own symphonies), four string quartets, to be played by the village
priest, himself, the steward, and the ’cellist Albrechtsberger.
All these pieces show how much happier he was since becoming
part of the Baron’s staff, for they are merry and jolly, and filled with
that humor which Haydn was the first to put into music.
Here, too, he met the cultivated Countess Thun, who was so
interested in his struggle for success, and in the youth himself that
she became his pupil. From this time on he began to earn more and
to live more comfortably.
Everything seemed to be clearing up for him now. The Countess
introduced him to Count Morzin, a Bohemian nobleman of great
wealth, and in 1759 he became his musical director. His orchestra
had eighteen members and here he wrote his first Symphony (the
first of one hundred and twenty-five!)
All this time he kept up his teaching and very soon married the
daughter of a wig-maker, who did not understand him and with
whom he was very unhappy, but he lived with her like the good man
he was until within a few years of his death.