Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Collusive Friendship

Abstract

Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—who considered themselves friends—rank among the most important classical composers of all times. The present chapter studies the evolution of their finances, considering both their incomes and expenditures. And while incomes did not differ too much between both musicians, expenditures did so greatly. Haydn, who opted for a comfortable yet not luxurious lifestyle, was always keen to save money and to have his expenses covered by his employers. Mozart, on the other hand, opted for the lavish lifestyle of Vienna’s upper class, which he could not finance after the outbreak of the war in 1787, forcing him to beg for short time loans to cover his debts. Yet, shortly before his death, his incomes shoot up again—only too late. Haydn for his part, also took advantage of the growing music publishing business and of two “tours” to England, from which he gained enormous net benefits.

Joseph Haydn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Believe me, my sole purpose is to make as much money as possible; for after good health it is the best thing to have.

Mozart to his father, Vienna, April 4, 1781

His flaw was that he didn’t know how to handle the money.

Nannerl Mozart on her brother

I have my own comfortable house, three or four courses at dinner, a good glass of wine, I can dress well, and when I want to drive out, a hired coach is good enough for me.

Haydn to a visitor

The realization that I am not bond-servant makes ample amend for all my toils [as a freelance composer].

Haydn in 1791

Introduction

Although the lives of Joseph Haydn¹ and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart² overlapped, the former was the latter’s senior by twenty-three years and outlived him by another seventeen. Thus, when Mozart was born on 27 January 1756, Joseph Haydn was shifting from being a freelance musician in the court of Vienna to a fixed employment at Baron von Fürnberg’s country estate. After Mozart’s premature death on 5 December 1791, Haydn continued working—and achieving some of his biggest successes—for more than a decade,³ now again as a freelance composer. Mozart’s life did, thus, overlap with less than half of Haydn’s (who died on 31 May 1809) and, although both may have occasionally met before, they only coincided in Vienna for about five years (1786–1790), when Mozart took permanent residence in the Austrian capital where Haydn moved after being released from his duties in Eszterházy.

* * *

The present chapter differs from the others that constitute this book in two points. First, Mozart might be the sole exception of a composer whose financial situation has been studied exhaustively (although with little advance in the last decades) by scholars.⁴ Second, Haydn and Mozart not only knew each other but had close enough bonds to consider themselves—despite their different ages—friends. Hence, besides comparing the biographies and financial situation of both composers, we will also include a short description of their friendship as it might give us the clue to understand what might be one of the first known cases of collusive oligopolies in the Austrian music business.

Haydn Before Mozart

Born on 31 March 1732 in the Austrian village of Rohrau as the son of Matthias Haydn (a wheelwright and Marktrichter, a sort of village major) and of María Haydn (née Koller), a former cook, Joseph grew up in a modest but by no means poor household, which we could define as a solid middle class. None of his parents could read music yet used to sing together with their children—Joseph’s younger brother Michael⁵ also became an, at the time, noted musician—accompanied by the harp chords that Matthias had taught himself (Dies 1810). However, the parents were proficient enough to notice child Joseph’s musical talent, and thus decided to send him to a relative, Johann Matthias Frankh (a school- and choirmaster in Hainburg), in whose home he would live to be trained as a musician.⁶ According to Haydn’s own reminiscences, the years he spent in Hainburg were marked by frequent hunger and the bad feeling of wearing filthy clothes (Griesinger 1810). Both these aspects would mark him deeply: as we will see later, he would be always worried about saving money so as not to suffer from deprivation again, while being very careful about his wardrobe, always keen to dress clean and well. At least the musical training received by Haydn seems to have been much better than the maintenance, as he became a good harpsichord and violin player and sang treble parts in the church choir well enough as to make him point out among his choir fellows. Hence, in 1739, he successfully passed the auditions and was selected as a singer in the choir of Saint Stephan Cathedral in Vienna—where the quality of his clothes improved more than the food provided—, and where he would remain until 1749 when due to the change of his voice and his troublesome behaviour he was dismissed from the choir.

Once that Haydn was forced to leave the Kapellhaus, he struggled hard to earn enough to sustain himself, a fact that very much marked his later relation to money (some considered him to be stingy) The composer Joseph Martin Kraus pronounced Haydn “a good soul, except for one thing—money” (Mathew 2022, p. 1). We know that his friend Buchholz had to lend him 150 fl.⁷ (ca. 3,750€) which he somehow managed to return despite his limited income. This, however, improved over the following years as he took on additional jobs: he gave music lessons for between 2 and 5 fl. each (that is, between 50 and 125€), in addition he also alternated different jobs as instrumentalist (as singer, violinist and organist) both in official employments and as street-musician. Between 1754 and 1756 Haydn also worked freelance for the court in Vienna, being among several musicians who were paid for services as supplementary musicians at balls given for the imperial children during carnival season, and as supplementary singers in the imperial chapel. As Vorspieler in the Merciful Brothers of Luipoldstadt Haydn earned 60 fl. per year. His income due to compositions was still limited; yet in 1757 (or 1758) he was paid 25 ducats (2,000€) for the music of the singspiel Neuer krummen Teufel. In 1756, Baron Carl Josef Fürnberg employed Haydn at his country estate, Weinzierl, where the composer wrote his first string quartets, a musical form for which he would set the standard for the next decades.

Recommended by Fürnberg, Haydn would receive in 1757 his first full-time appointment as Kapellmeister in the court of Count Morzin with an annual salary of 200 fl. plus free food and shelter. During this time Haydn composed his first symphonies, a musical form in which he was to excel. Three years after gaining this first steady position, Haydn married Maria Anna Keller. A curious parallelism with Mozart might be pointed out: both ended up marrying the sisters of their original loves as “second best choice”. Actually, Haydn had originally courted her later wife’s younger sister Therese whom he would not marry because the bride’s father considered that the young musician should make sure first to have a secured income—but at the time that Haydn had become a Kapellmeister, Therese had taken vows and become a nun. Hence, he married the leftover, Anna Maria. According to Irmen (2007, p. 72), the bride yielded goods worth 350 fl. of trousseau and 500 fl. cash, the groom 1,000 fl. The marriage, however, was not a happy one: Haydn accused his wife of being responsible for not bearing children, which he considered to be a justification good enough to have extramarital affairs (as she did too). In a famous letter to one of his lovers, he refers to his wife as “quella bestia infernale” [this beast from hell]; on another occasion, when passing in front of his wife’s portrait with a visitor he labelled her as “the house dragon”. And when the publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel sends him a present for his wife, he returned it with a note that said: “She does not deserve anything; and she does not care whether her husband is musician or a shoemaker” (Huss 1984, p. 32; Irmen 2007, p. 74).

We do not know when exactly and under which circumstances Prince Eszterházy heard Haydn’s symphonies, but he became so enthused with them, that he asked Count Morzin to cede Haydn to him. As the count had in between lost most of his fortune and had to dissolve his orchestra, the prince’s request was promptly fulfilled: Haydn’s career was about to boost, turning him into one of wealthiest musicians of all time.

Haydn started his job at the court of Prince Eszterházy in 1761 with an annual salary of 400 fl. (paid quarterly), thus doubling the previous emoluments he had received by Count Morzin. Additionally, he was allowed to eat at the officer’s table or, instead, perceive 0.5 fl. per day as compensation. Another fringe benefit was the court uniform (light blue embroidered in silver) which Haydn had to wear in all official acts and would be replaced every year. If, however, the old uniform was still suitable, the money saved (at least 100 fl.) would be paid out in cash. Haydn, especially during the later years in Eszterháza made repeatedly use of this right as he used to take much care of his wardrobe.

In 1762, hardly one year after starting to work for the prince, Haydn’s salary was raised to 600 fl. while keeping all fringe benefits, twice as much as the court’s lead singer and thrice as much as its concertmaster. And in 1763 it was raised once again—in order to account for the inflation—to 782 fl.⁸

From 1771 onwards more payments in kind were added: 500 l. of wine per year (which was soon raised to 670 l.), all the firewood he required and 20 (later 30) pounds of candles. When in 1774 the post of organist at the Church of Eisenstadt became vacant and no suitable candidate was to be found, Haydn also took over that position, adding another 180 fl. to his annual income, which by now was close to an astonishing 1,000 fl per year (as will be shown later, Mozart working for the—nota bene, Imperial—court in Vienna never earned more than 800 fl). But at the same time, Eszterházy’s new concertmaster Luigi Tomasini, was paid 1,800 fl. enjoying similar fringe benefits to those of Haydn, as the tariff for Italian musicians usually doubled that of the natives.

It seems that as Haydn became to be better known outside the Austrian borders, he used to confront the prince with the possibility of seeking a foreign job—to which the prince usually reacted increasing his salary. Haydn also was occasionally rewarded with additional cash payments (up to 12 ducats ≈ 50 fl.) for compositions which the prince considered to be especially successful. Until 1774—when he brought all additional payments to a halt as Haydn was already earning 1,000 fl. per year—the composer had received at least 1,126 fl. through this mean (Huss 1984, p. 48). An additional gift granted to Haydn by the prince was a two-horse carriage with a coachman which was given to him for free (the horses would be fed at the court’s stables) as a reward for having trained Ignatz Pleyel.⁹

As we have seen, fringe benefits and payments in kind imbursed by Prince Eszterházy meant Haydn’s own expenses were basically reduced to lodging. But also, in this case the composer turned out to be a clever businessman. In 1766 (before that the Haydn’s had been living in the Kapellhaus) he bought the house in the Klosterzeile 82 (now Haydn Gasse 21) in Eisenstadt for 1,000 fl. which included a garden—with the famous Klause in which he is supposed to have composed many of his works—, pastureland, a piece of forest and a field. He financed the operation asking for a 400 fl. advance of his salary and a 500 fl. credit bestowed by his father-in-law at a 5% interest. The remaining 100 fl. must have been out of Haydn’s savings. But unfortune stuck and the house was damaged by a fire in 1768. It cost 300 fl. to do all the repairing—which, surprisingly, were paid by Prince Eszterházy. In 1776, however, the house burned down a second time—and again the 450 fl. due for the repair were compensated by the prince. Two years later, in 1778, as the court moved to Eszterháza, Haydn did not have any need for the house which he sold for 2,000 fl., thus making 1.000 fl. gross benefit over a period of twelve years: not a bad return of investment, even after discounting the interest paid to his father-in-law and inflation. The day after cashing in the money for the house, Haydn invested half of the amount in 5% obligations emitted by the Fürstliche Kassa.

Altogether, we may conclude that Haydn did not only enjoy quite a high salary at Eszterháza but, more significantly, had nearly no expenses, as most of his costs were carried for by the prince (food, clothing, repair of the house, firewood, candles, wine and a carriage with coachman), thus allowing him to save an important capital over the years while keeping the live standard of an upper middle class. The dictum attributed to Henry Ford according to which “you do not get rich by what you earn, but by what you do not spend” was meant for Haydn!

If until then Haydn has used the option of leaving Eszterháza as a way of menacing the prince and screwing up his salary, the truth is that, by the end of his Hungarian stay Haydn’s fame had spread so far all over Europe, that he started receiving firm work offers from Spain, France and the United Kingdom (Huss 1984, pp. 72ff).

During his last years at Eszterháza, Haydn would make the acquittance of three people from different spheres, each of whom would significantly mark his future: Luigia Ponzelli—who would become his mistress—, Marianne von Griesinger—his close friend and confident—and a young musician who had marvelled Europe as a prodigious child who played the piano masterfully and had now become a colleague: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Mozart’s Early Years

As at the time Mozart was not working chiefly as a composer, but as performer, we do not detail the family’s income at this period.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart (1719–1787)—Kapellmeister in Salzburg and author of a successful violin textbook—and Anna Maria, née Pertl (1720–1778). In 1763 Leopold obtained a leave of absence from his position as deputy Kapellmeister at the prince archbishop’s court at Salzburg, and the family (both parents, Wolfgang and his elder sister Maria Anna, nicknamed “Nannerl”) set out on a promotional “grand tour”, visiting Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Mainz, Frankfurt, Brussels and Paris (where they remained for the winter), then London (where they spent 15 months),¹⁰ returning through The Hague, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon and Switzerland, and arriving back in Salzburg in November 1766. In most of these cities Mozart was presented as Wunderkind, played and improvised alone or with his sister and father. After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang set off for another journey, this time to Italy. On this tour, which lasted from December 1769 to March 1771, Leopold not only wanted to promote his son as performer but especially as composer, while seeking to a possible appointment at an Italian court. Yet, all attempts failed and on their return to Salzburg Wolfgang entered the service of the city’s archbishop, Hieronymus Colloredo (for Mozart’s early years, see Sadie 2006). He would, however—unlike Haydn—, keep the travelling habits acquired in his youth: It has been calculated that from the 13,097 days that Mozart lived, he spent 3,720 travelling.

Mozart: From Salzburg to Vienna

Mozart considered himself undervalued in Salzburg, where his salary was 150 fl. (the living costs in Salzburg were notably lower than in Vienna). Thus, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. But new extended trips with his father to Vienna (July to September 1773) and Munich (December 1774 to March 1775) resulted unsuccessful. This notwithstanding, in August 1777, Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, this time visiting Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris and Munich. While Wolfgang stayed in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg, achieving that he was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster with an annual salary of 450 fl., which he, however reluctantly, finally accepted, starting in January 1779.

But Wolfgang was not happy. In a letter to his father dated on 17 March 1781, he complains about archbishop Colloredo’s peculiar treatment of his employees: no evening meal was provided. Instead, each of them received three ducats (13.5 fl.) as compensation. Should this have been on a daily basis, the compensation would have been more than generous, as an evening meal in a tavern cost between 1 and 2 fl. (Braunbehrens 1990, p. 19). Thus, it seems more likely that this amount was paid on a per-week basis, corresponding to approximately 2 fl. per day. As we have seen, twenty years earlier, Haydn was paid 0.5 fl. compensation on those days in which he would not have lunch at the officer’s table, and it seems reasonable that over two decades the average price for a meal had quadrupled.

The relation with Colloredo was always tense, as he made sure to keep Mozart tight in order to avoid new prolonged absences as in the past. This clashed with the musician's wish to take leave to present his compositions to the broadest possible audience. But then again, in the archbishop’s eyes—and in the opinion of most of his contemporaries—Mozart was primarily a keyboard virtuoso, not a composer. Hence Mozart repeatedly pursued to gain his freedom from the archbishop moving to Vienna. But that his estimations of possible incomes were not very accurate as can be seen in the letters in which he tries to convince his father of the advantages of working in the capital:

I would not hesitate for a moment to leave the archbishop’s services. I would give a grand concert, take four pupils, an in a year I would have got on so well in Vienna that I would make at least a thousand thaler [aprox. 2,000 fl.] a year.

So, Mozart once again resigned—he actually was dismissed by the Archbishop in Salzburg and, despite the famous encounter with Colloredo which ended with him kicking Mozart “in the arse”, as he detailed in a letter to his father, the real reason behind his leave seems to have been basically a matter of money.¹¹ Mozart headed to conquer Vienna, the empire’s capital. And would soon find out that his prospectives regarding his income might have been a bit too optimistic.

In Vienna Mozart would for the first time live on his own. As during this time and until 1787 he did not receive any public support nor salary from any court or patron, Hildesheimer (1977) considers Mozart to have been the first true freelance composer.¹² He soon learnt to value money—and the difficulty of handling it, especially as his expected lifestyle was much above his real income: he and Constanze—whom he had married on 4 August 1782 (as was the case of Haydn, Mozart has originally courted Constanze’s sister Aloysia)—lived in comparatively expensive circles, since they consorted with a wealthy section of the capital’s society (Steptoe 1984, p. 200). And they did so even before having the income to afford it. Mozart’s attitude seems to have been that of a dandy, up-dressed and big-spending, following the credo still applied by those who wanted to become rock stars in the 1970s: “Until you make it—fake it!” (Tyler 2011, p. 46).

Regarding his household economy during his first year in the Austrian capital, Braunbehrens refers:

His expenditures were considerable. He was not prepared for a lengthy stay in Vienna. Most of his clothes were still in Salzburg and were not sent to him until summer. Thus he had no choice but to have new clothes made; after all, Vienna was an especially elegant and fashion-conscious city, and the measure of vanity had been bred into Mozart at an early age. Mozart himself attached a great importance to his wardrobe. He considered himself a member of the social circles that supported him as an artist, and this conditioned his style of life. He probably tried to compensate his unusual small stature by dressing impressively. He thought that his presence at the bourgeois and aristocratic salons, his contacts with the court, and his public appearances as a virtuoso entitled him to commensurate social rank that had to be reflected in his clothing. Muzio Clementi described his appearance as indistinguishable from that of an aristocratic courtier or chamberlain. (Braunbehrens 1990, p. 58)

Clementi had met Mozart on December 1781, when, during his stay in Vienna, he was asked by Joseph II to play for the royal guests in competition with the former, an event of which the emperor would continue rhapsodising years later (ibid.: 63). Mozart was paid 50 ducats (225 fl.) for his participation, a money that was very much welcomed by him as the 400 or 450 fl. that he also received that year for the Munich Idomeneo were presumably used to pay off debts of his Paris journey, and it seems quite likely that to finance his first year in the capital he had to incur in debts asking his aristocratic and bourgeois patrons for financial help. Hence, although Mozart would never again live as modestly as he did during his first summer in Vienna, (ibid.), it would not be the last time that he would have had to borrow money to make ends meet. It should be however, observed, that although Mozart would be frequently in debt, he was so only to bourgeois patrons (Wolff 2012), as to keep up his spending in “thoughtless liberality” (Baumol and Baumol 1994, p. 190).

Actually, in March 1784 Mozart had started a budget book in order to keep a certain control over the family’s earnings and expenditures. But he gave up in February of the next year, asking Constanze to continue it. She, however proved to be even less motivated to do so. The soprano certainly does not seem to have been a very efficient housewife nor businesswoman while married to Mozart, whose “bohemian lifestyle” she shared (Einstein 1945).¹³ Unfortunately the revealing budget book—despite its shortness the lone real source about Mozart’s finances—was lost in 1945 (Bauer 2009, p. 25). This has obliged researchers to try to quantify Mozart’s expenditures through different means, in order to relate them to his income. Likely the most original attempt in this sense is the one by Bauer (2009) who, after having located a brochure published in 1788 which listed prices of nearly all goods and services in Vienna in that year,¹⁴ used this information to estimate the Mozart family expenditures. And although there is a certain merit to the book, and the approach seems accurate, in general the author tends to inflate those costs too much (cf. Lorenz 2012), often calculating exorbitant figures.

On 7 December 1787, Mozart was appointed imperial and royal Court composer with an annual salary of 800 fl. a promotion likely triggered by the spectacular success of Don Giovanni, the death of his predecessor Christoph Willibald Gluck and the emperor’s fear that Mozart might follow an invitation to a foreign court. That Mozart’s salary was not set higher¹⁵ (as a reminder: Haydn at the time was earning 1,000 fl. in the Eszterháza court, with nearly all his expenses covered) might be due to the fact that his position allowed him to complement it with many additional sources of income as performer and composer as he wished and he used to take advantage of it through a wide range of creative activities (Wolff 2012, pp. 20 and 24). In fact, until his death, Mozart earned in his position as court composer 2,200 fl. for writing 36 menuets and 31 German Redouten for the Big and Small Redoutensaal: 32,8 fl. for each (very short) piece. Actually, the demands for the post were so slight, that after Mozart’s death, it was considered superfluous and no successor was appointed (Steptoe 1984, pp. 196–197).

Besides this regular income, Mozart’s irregular income in the “golden decade” (Landon 1988), consisted of teaching piano and composition classes—for which he is supposed to have asked 6 ducats (≈27 fl.) for every dozen lesson, a price that seems too high fetched, despite the fact that his “rival” Clementi received 10 fl. per lesson (Steptoe 1984, p. 197)—,¹⁶ payments for compositions (both in commission and publisher’s fees),¹⁷ and concerts in which he performed himself (ibid., p. 197),¹⁸ all of which—due to the limitation of space—are summarised in Table 3.1.¹⁹ A special mention deserves the 1,000 fl. that he inherited from his father’s estate in 1787.

Table 3.1 Mozart’s income 1781–1791

As we can see, earnings of approximately 11,000 fl. are matched by expenditures in the same range (although we have to be aware of the limitations of our data, which is by no means complete). They would seem to balance each other out, but as 1,000 fl. of the income are actually loans (usually at a 5% interest rate), strictly speaking, there is a deficit. Furthermore, there are imponderables on both sides, which only appear to affect the income more than the expenditures. We can thus agree with the assumption by Bär (1978, p. 52) according to which over these six years that go from 1785 to 1791 the Mozart family spent 12,000 fl., an average of 2,000 fl. per year.

Let us assume that Mozart received 300 fl. for one of his own concerts, 100 fl. for subscription concerts, and gifts equivalent to 50 fl. at private concerts for aristocrats; and let us further assume that his publishers paid him an average fee of 20 fl. for longer works and 5 fl. for shorter works. Adding these amounts to his recorded earnings, we can guess that Mozart’s average income between 1782 and 1791 was 3,000 to 4,000 fl. at a very conservative estimate. In 1781 Mozart could not have made more than 1,500 fl. he had to come to Vienna without any preparation. For 1786 we arrive at a sum of only 2,000 fl, while our estimate for the following year approaches 4,000 fl.; in other words, there was no striking decrease in receipts. (Braunbehrens, 1990, p. 140)

Another interesting source of information that might give us a hint about Mozart’s financial situation is the rent paid for the family’s successive lodgings (which are uncommonly frequent in comparison, say, with Haydn: on average one move per year). According to the information published by Lorenz (2010) and Wolff (2012), Mozart paid for his homes in Vienna the rents listed in Table 3.2 (On Mozart's homes in Vienna, see also Baur 2014, pp. 393–396).

Table 3.2 Mozart’s homes in Vienna 1784–1791

It might be observed that from May 1787 onwards the Mozarts moved to cheaper flats; two of them were suburban, thus allowing them to pay less although gaining space. However, assuming that the only reason for these moves were economic ones, does not account for the fact that other circumstances, such as Constance’s pregnancies, might also have played a role. However, it is evident that those moves to the capital’s outskirts took place at a time when Mozart saw his income diminish. But then again, those moves would reflect less the need to save money than the wish to keep a certain standard of living (spacious flats which, among other things, could bear his expensive billiard table, a stable, etcetera). Thus, unlike what he had claimed in one of his letters to Puchberg, when Mozarts moved to the Alsergrung—in the outskirts of the capital—they had by no means downgraded their living, but merely maintained the housing space at their disposal. As Lorenz (2010) has proven documentarily, Mozart did in fact rent the biggest apartment in the house, the so-called Gartenwohnung.²⁰ Hence, the switch did not affect his musical productivity, as the house in the Alsergrund saw the composition of Cosí fan tutte and of his three last symphonies. And their last flat—now again in the city (for details on this home, see Evertz and Evertz 1980)—was 145 m² big and included a stable for the horse which Mozart only sold (for 63 fl.) two months before his own death.

Figure 3.1 presents together the presumable earnings by Mozart during his Viennese years (1781–1791), the rent he paid from 1784 onwards and the money he borrowed from Puchberg and Hofdemel starting in 1788. Although the income series presents important oscillations—it has to be kept in mind that our sources are incomplete and, to a certain degree speculative—the linear tendency shows a positive slope, hence indicating that it grew steadily over the period studied. However, if we take a look at the two-period moving average, we observe two downward periods: from 1784 to 1786 and from 1787 to 1789, the latter coinciding with the famous beggar letters to Puchberg. The reason behind this diminished income—which Mozart had not foreseen, for which he had not set any savings aside and which initially he believed to be able to compensate with supplementary earnings (which he heavily overestimated)—might be manyfold, but at least four may be pointed out.

Fig. 3.1

(Source own elaboration from the sources mentioned in the text)

Mozart’s finances from 1781 to 1791

Firstly, the overall development of the Austrian economy experienced a severe downturn between 1787 and 1790. The Turkish declaration of war to Russia forced Joseph II out of duty to assist Tsar Katharina. This decision resulted in a strong rise of public deficit, the levying of a heavy war tax—besides other fiscal burdens—and an uncontrolled inflation. People would not be able to afford piano classes or to attend concerts, theatres would not programme any operas and Mozart would have suddenly to live alone on his income as court musician, by far not enough money to cover his fixed costs. For instance, in 1788 Mozart had to announce the postponement of the publicacion of his three quintets to the following year,as too few people had signed the original subscription. But then again, that lack of interest from the public might have been due not only to the war, as over the same period Haydn continued selling splendidly, cashing in 75 for each symphony (Baur 2014, pp. 304–305).

Hence a second element to be considered is that the Viennese, who still regarded Mozart mainly as an extraordinary performer rather than as a gifted composer, might have become a little bit bored of him. His permanent residence in the capital might have resulted in a certain overexposure, while the playing style of Muzio Clementi (with a comparatively “harder” stroke) became more fashionable. The severe decline of Mozart’s popularity in the second half of 1780—which followed the previous “hype” that culminated in at least nine concerts given in 1785—waned rapidly, with not a single appearance as a soloist between 1788 and 1790. And Mozart’s attempt to mount a series of concerts in 1789 failed miserably (Steptoe 1984, p. 198) and the invitation to travel to England from December 1790 to July 1791, together with the commission of two new operas for 300 £, extended by the Italian Opera of London, arrived too late as to become a realistic option (Haydn would accept it). Sadly enough, Mozart did not receive the proposal in time, because he was on a musical journey through Europe, seeking not only the commission of new works, but also to (re)open new markets which were less saturated for him as a performer.²¹

In the years when Mozart appears to have been in financial trouble he suffered a sharp drop in the number of his concert appearances, which may well be, to some extend, attributable to the dispersion of the court and the fall in demand resulting from the war. There may also have been a general drop in Mozart’s popularity caused, perhaps, by overexposure on Viennese concert stage, as Steptoe [1984] proposes. Certainly Mozart undertook several onerous trips between 1785 and 1791, possible to duplicate his Viennese success in other cities, Unfortunately, they seem to have been only mildly remunerative if at all. (Baumol and Baumol 1994, p. 185)

The third factor to be highlighted is the rise in medical costs and cures that Mozart’s wife, Constanze, required at the time, although the estimation of their amounts varies greatly between authors.

A fourth—albeit controversial—reason, first stated in Kraemer (1976), rebutted by Bär (1978) but since then increasingly considered in the literature (so, for example, in Baur 2016), is that Mozart’s might have squandered (occasionally large) sums of money at the billiard and gambling table, which would explain his repeated request for short-term loans. This “vice” would have been later concealed by Conztanze through a shrewd suppression of undesirable material (Steptoe 1984, p. 196). Despite its attractiveness, and the fact that there might be some arguments to support this thesis, it has so far not been possible to find any proof of Mozart losing large sums of money playing billiard or the card game “Pharao” (Bauer 2009, p. 21), although we consider it a plausible option.

To which extent—if at all—financial crises might have been worsened in Mozart’s case by gambling debts, or if, on the contrary he might have started gambling more fiercely in an attempt to compensate his financial shortcomings, thus worsening his situation, must, for the moment, remain the mere object of speculation. But we do know that the situation did affect negatively his mood, with increasing periods of melancholy and even depression. And we can say for sure that, after the death of Joseph II and the end of the war, the general economic situation recovered quickly, as did Mozart’s finances, his income reaching the peak of the series in 1791.

What were then the reasons for Mozart’s urgent need for money (even though the role of the Bettelbriefe should not be exaggerated, and should not mislead us to think of a “nearly starving Mozart”)? Fig. 3.1 shows no apparent need for them except if abnormal costs—such as the medical costs for Costanze which, however, are considered now to have been much lower than historically assumed—had surged. Another hypothesis is the already mentioned one of possible gambing debts. It would be supported by the fact that those Baur (2014, p. 267) had to be paid in time—for not doing so was considered a social discredit, something that Mozart (as we have seen) always keen to keep up socially, could by no means allow—²²asking for a loan might be the “lesser evil”; and it might also account—due to a “lucky series”?—for the unexplained income of 2,000 fl. recorded by Mozart in 1791. However, we believe that this hypothesis does not contradict—and, in fact is perfectly compatible—with the political and macroeconomic causes behind Mozart’s financial distress in 1788–1789 already pointed out, as it might have been the reason that (given the case) might have pushed him towards the billiard and gambling tables.²³

Whatsoever, Fig. 3.1 shows that after the critical years 1788–1790, Mozart’s economic situation drastically bettered: in 1791—the war with the Turks had ended and the nobility had returned to Vienna; Constance needed no more cures; Mozart hit a big success with the singspiel Die Zauberflöte, received the commission of (and first payment for) a Requiem (Wolff 1991), got an important money transfer of unknown origin and had hag been given the promise of the Hungarian nobility of a yearly pension of 1,000 fl. and an even higher one from Amsterdam (Wolff 2012, p. 325)—his income skyrocket²⁴ (see Table 3.1), putting an end to the chronical cash-shortage he had suffered the previous years. Hence, he could afford sending his oldest son Karl Thomas to the most expensive boarding school in Vienna, which cost 400 fl.

And, also in 1791, he even got another appointment—though an unremunerated one—as assistant of the Kapellmeister at Saint Stephan’s Cathedral (Wolff 2012, p. 135).²⁵ Mozart’s money problems were solved, and his future seemed brighter than ever—but then his health worsened quickly and after a short illness Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on 5 December 1791, taking with him all the music “ready composed, just not yet written” (ibid. 159) which he had already registered in the catalogue of his works (which—significantly unlike his budget book—he had kept metoculously). As Mozart himself had stated (see the quote that opens this chapter), “after good health, money is the most important thing to have!”—He turned out to be right.

Mozart’s funeral took place in the early afternoon of that same day in the Holy Cross Chapel of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, after which he was buried in St. Marx Cemetery according to the law (i.e., by no means in a pauper grave, but a third-class funeral, just as 99% of the Vienna population during the time, which cost 8.56 fl. plus 3 kr. for the cart). His estate recorded 60 fl. in cash, 800 fl. owed to Mozart—he was generous in borrowing money, out of those 800 fl., 500 fl. were listed as being without recourse—and 918 fl. of debts. In total, Mozart’s estate consisted of 592 fl. and debts that amounted to 1473 fl.—but, this information is only of relative value as, according to the custom, it is likely to have been undervalued to reduce taxes (Braunbehrens 1990, pp. 424–425; Caeyers 2015, p. 720).

A few days later, on 10 December 1791, the exequies for Mozart were held at St. Michael—the parish church of the court and the Tonkünstler Sozietät—the by then completed parts of the Requiem were performed for the first time (Wolff 2012, p. 43) very likely conducted by Saliery.

Finally, not only fame—his demand to publish his works skyrocketed immediately after his death—but also wealth would come to Mozart, although the sole beneficiary of the latter would be his widow, Constanze, who also managed to gain a pension from the emperor. She survived the composer for more than a half-century, leaving “upon her death in 1842 […] her two sons a major fortune of 30,000 fl. in cash, bonds and savings accounts—all based on earnings from Mozart’s music” (Wolff 2012, p. 8).²⁶

Haydn’s and Mozart’s Friendship

If during Mozart’s lifetime Haydn seems to have been the “giving” part in their relation—it should be remembered that he nearly doubled the latter’s age—, after Mozart’s death, Haydn increasingly turned from being the latter’s “master” to his “follower” (Jacob, 1954, p. 167).

“Believe me” he told the British music critic Burnay [after Mozart’s death] “I am nothing compared to Mozart” (ibid.)

Also Haydn wrote to Constanze offering her to give musical instruction to her son when he reached the appropriate age, and later really fulfilled his promise.

We do not know when exactly Haydn and Mozart met for the first time, and although it is possible that they may have crossed paths in Vienna during the 1770s (see Brown, 1992), it seems more likely that their first formal meeting might have taken place in the 1780s, once Mozart had taken permanent residence in the Austrian capital (Stapert 2014, p. 146).²⁷ But then we know that not only did their paths cross frequently, but that they even played music together, admired each other—although young Mozart was critical about Haydn—, considered themselves friends—addressing each other by “Du”—and even, to some extent, mutually influenced their music (see Schmidt and Sanders 1956).

The Irish singer Michael Kelly recalls having assisted in a chamber concert in which Haydn had played the first violin and Mozart the viola, a fact corroborated by the musician Maximilan Stadler. Also famous—although its veracity is sometimes doubted—is the anecdote told by Niemetschek (1798: 69):

At a private party a new work of Joseph Haydn was being performed. Besides Mozart there were a number of other musicians present, among them a certain man who was never known to praise anyone but himself. He was standing next to Mozart and found fault with one thing after another. For a while Mozart listened patiently; when he could bear it no longer and the fault-finder once more conceitedly declared: “I would not have done that”, Mozart retorted: “Neither would I, but do you know why?” Because neither of us could have thought of anything so appropriate.

Mozart dedicated a set of six string quartets (now known as “Haydn quartets” to Haydn, an unlike exception to the general custom of dedicating compositions to wealthy nobiliary patrons.²⁸ The dedication reads:

A father who had decided to send his sons out into the great world thought it his duty to entrust them to the protection and guidance of a man who was very celebrated at the time, and who happened moreover to be his best friend. In the same way I send my six sons to you. Please, then, receive them kindly and be to them a father, guide, and friend! ... I entreat you, however, to be indulgent to those faults which may have escaped a father's partial eye, and in spite of them, to continue your generous friendship towards one who so highly appreciates it.

Haydn in turn was so impressed with Mozart’s work that, when meeting Leopold Mozart on 12 February 1785 he assured him that:

Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name; he has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition.

Another common ground for potential meetings would have been the Freemason logia “Zur wahren Eintracht” which Mozart joined on 14 December 1784 after which, it seems, he persuaded Haydn to follow his example, although it is not clear whether other Viennese acquaintances may have also prompted his interest in it. Actually, Haydn’s initiation ceremony was scheduled for 28 January—Mozart would have been present to welcome Haydn after the ritual of taking off his blindfold—but had to be postponed by one week because the letter of notification had arrived too late in Eszterháza. Unfortunately, this meant that Mozart could not attend the ceremony, as that day (1 February) Mozart had to pick up his father who had travelled to Vienna to attend his son’s concert that evening.²⁹

But likely the most significant proof of their friendship and true admiration—and, thus, of any absence of rivalry between them—is the answer that Haydn sent to Prague after having received the commission offer for an opera in 1787 (quoted in Irmen, 2007, pp. 197–198).

You ask me for an opera buffa: I would be happy to it, if you would like to have something of my song composition for yourself. But in this case, I can never have it performed it at the theatre in Prague [...] in which the great Mozart can hardly have anyone else at his side. For I could imprint Mozart's inimitable works on the soul of every music lover, especially the great ones, as deeply and with such musical understanding, with such great feeling, as I understand and feel them. Nations should compete to possess such a jewel within their walls. Prague shall hold the dear man fast—but also reward him [properly]. For without this, the history of great geniuses is sad, and gives little encouragement to posterity to strive further [...] I am angry that Mozart has not yet been engaged by an imperial or royal court. Forgive me if I get off track: I am [simply] too fond of the man.

Haydn After Mozart

As already stated, Haydn was on his first trip to London—which lasted from January 1791 to July 1792—when Mozart died. The reason for this trip laid in another death which had occurred the year before, namely that of Haydn’s employer, Prince Nikolaus. He was succeeded by his son Anton, and the new Prince Eszterházy sought to economise by dismissing most of the court musicians (a trend that had already been observed in other courts). Hence, although Haydn retained a nominal appointment with Anton, at a reduced salary of 400 fl.—while keeping his 1000 fl. pension from Nikolaus—there was really little work to do for him. Thus, his new employer showed his willingness to let him travel, and the composer accepted a lucrative offer from Johann Peter Salomon, a German violinist and impresario, to visit England and conduct new symphonies with a large orchestra there (on the London symphonies, see Ulm 2007). Due to the positive resonance and the huge economic success of this first stay in the United Kingdom, Haydn would do a second stay from January 1794 to 1795. It has to be observed, that at the time of his first arrival in London, Haydn was already a well-known figure all over Europe—actually, it seems secure to say that he was the most renowned one—as hardly a concert in London did not feature one of his works. Thus, it does not wonder that the masses flocked to his concerts, increasing even more his fame. The financial result of both his journeys was certainly impressive (especially if compared with Mozart’s “foreign activities”): a net profit of at least 15,000 fl. gave him the economic freedom he had always longed for.

Two years later, in 1797, he moved to his two-story house in Wien-Gumpendorf, on the outskirts of the capital, where he would live until his death in 1809.³⁰ In 1800, after 40 years of unhappy marriage, Haydn’s wife died—now his freedom was complete—and he decided not to marry again. Those nearly two last decades of his life would see the composition and premiere of some of his most outstanding works, such as the twelve London symphonies—in 1805 he rejected the offer of Count Fries to write another one for the tempting sum of 400 fl.—, a set of Lieder (which he sold for 500 fl. to Count Browne-Camus and then again to the editor Breitkopf for 400 fl.),³¹ six masses, the musical meditation The seven last words of Christ—a commission by the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva in Cádiz (Spain),³²—and the oratoria Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten. The former, for which he used to work 16 h per day, was completed in April 1798, earning Haydn 500 fl. (plus a box filled with an additional 100 ducats (i.e., 450 fl.) from Count Schwarzenberg. After a private premiere, it was first performed for the public on 19 March 1799 and resulted in an outstanding success, allowing Haydn to cash in 4,088 fl.—the highest proceeds ever made by the Hoftheater! Thus, Haydn decided to sell the complete score on a subscription basis, resulting in a total of 87 subscribers at a price of 3 ducats, plus additional subscriptions from Russia at a price of 20 rubbles (Feder 1999, pp. 152–153). The net benefit for Haydn was ca. 2,000 ducats (≈9,000 fl.). Later he sold the Schöpfung-score to Breitkopf for 4500 fl. for an “ordinary” edition which was published in 1800 and sold over 800 copies in the first year. The premiere of the Schöpfung in Paris was also a success, so that the musicians had a gold medal minted with Haydn’s profile and sent to him: the gold it contained was worth 50 ducats. Only the premiere of the work in London was less extraordinary, as the Britons did not seem to be very enthusiastic about somebody picking up Händel’s position as a composer of oratorio (on Haydn and Händel see Larsen 1982). Similarly, the oratorio Die Jahreszeiten, although less successful than Die Schöpfung, brought in 3,983 fl. through ticket sales, including a donation of 475 fl. by the imperial couple (Irmen 2007, pp. 270–271).

All three mentioned works, The seven last words of Christ, Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten were also performed many times (often conducted by Haydn himself) in order to collect funds for the social work carried out by the Tonkünstler-Societät (at the time the only private organisation to offering concerts in Vienna³³: the money thus generated by Haydn for the widows and orphans of the society’s members summed up to the astonishing figure of 35,530 fl. (ibid.)! No wonder that the organisation later renamed itself after Haydn.³⁴

The last years of Haydn’s life were quiet: he lived a certain distance from the city centre; his illness did not allow him to compose or play the piano for more than some minutes, and he felt the pain of continuously imagining new music which he could not write down (Irmen 2007, pp. 278ff). This may explain why in 1805 the false news of his death spread through French media: up to the point that a Requiem for his memory was performed in Paris (Ulm 2007, p. 209).

On 26 May³⁵ Haydn played his Emperor's Hymn thrice with enjoyment. That very same evening he collapsed and was taken to what proved to be his deathbed, where he passed away peacefully on 31 May 1809.

On 15 June, the memorial service for Haydn was held in the Schottenkirche at which the (in the meantime “completed”) Mozart Requiem—for which Wolfgang had reached out to motifs by Händel and Michael Haydn, with heavy reminiscences of Bach (Sopeña 1945, p. 65; on Mozart and Bach see also note 7 in the following chapter)—was performed under the baton of Mozart’s pupil Joseph Eybler, by then the Viennese court kapellmeister (Wolff 2012, note 91). Hence, the same music sounded during both our composer’s funerals.

Concluding Remarks

The detailed comparison of the incomes of Haydn and Mozart is not easy, due to the lack of information—loss of Mozart’s budget book—and of a certain mythification of Mozart as an unrecognised genius who died in poverty, an image spilled by generalist media and movies. Despite some recent serious attempts aimed to enlighten Mozart’s real income, the resulting image is still very incomplete (unlikely the case of Haydn), probably as a mere reflection of Mozart’s own unconventional lifestyle which relied more on ad-hoc works than on a regular income basis and his permanent wish to live up to the life-standard of his wealthy friends and acquaintances, must have certainly been a strain on his budget (Baumel and Baumol 1994, p. 190). Yet, we hope to have been able to prove that the available data, despite their many limitations, does allow us to conclude for sure, that Mozart’s income had to be considered on average comparatively quite high, especially during his Viennese years. Occasionally, he would earn more than twenty times an average salary of a musician at the court³⁶ (400 fl. vs the more than 8,000 cashed in by Mozart)—a disparity that “under the circumstances of the eighteenth century has to be considered irritating” (Lütteken 2017, p. 103).

The extraordinariness of this situation seems to have influenced very specifically his personal lifestyle. […] Mozart’s way of life was very sophisticated, expensive and, taking advantage of the existing class permeability, oriented towards representation. […] Mozart’s love for elegant clothing and for a luxurious lifestyle can be truly evidenced and results out of self-determined special social condition. (Lütteken 2017, p. 104)

A similar result is reached by Wolff (2012, pp. 3–4) when concluding that despite being

one of the best-paid musicians if the late eighteenth century [Mozart] was living well beyond his means by leading an almost aristocratic style, and that he was handling his financial affairs irresponsibly at best.

And Mozart’s scheme seemed to work—until 1788, when his financial situation worsened so dramatically that he had to beg his friends for money (the famous Bettelbriefe) and accept low-quality commissions to cover his fixed costs and pay for his debts. The reasons for this drastic change in Mozart’s financial situation have occupied scholars for decades and are still a question of ongoing debate. However, as an economist, one feels inclined to highlight the importance of “business cycles”: Mozart’s household economy had simply not foreseen the severe income decline during the war years, a situation that pushed him towards melancholy and periods of depression. At the time of his death, he was—after the premieres of his operas in Prague and the success of the Zauberflöte—, by no means poor even though he might have still been struggling to pay off some debts. But mainly as a matter of a periodic cash shortage.

A completely different situation is that of Haydn. Never burdened by the Wunderkind syndrome and having known the effects of poverty in his own youth, Haydn was always careful not only in trying to maximise his income, but also in very much controlling his expenditures. This allowed him soon to have savings which, for example, allowed him to overcome the 1788 crisis—unlike Mozart, whose mind, it seems, was never crossed by the idea of saving yet investing money, despite his contacts to important Austrian bankers—without major problems. And he also proved to be a more realistic deal-maker both with the music impresarios and publishers. He did not hesitate in combining several ways of publishing his scores (subscription, regular editions and piano reductions) to maximise his input—and, at the same time, also his reputation—and, after having gained a financial cushion as a result of his two stays in London, he focused on (for him) new musical genres such as the two oratoria Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten, which not only reported him additional high incomes but also spread and consolidated his fame even wider throughout Europe. Haydn died as one of the wealthiest composers up to that moment, who despite his success, had always been fond of contributing his compositions to the benefit of the Tonkünstler-Societät, thus demonstrating his high social responsibility.

* * *

At Haydn’s funeral mass Mozart’s Requiem was played, just as had been the case in the composer’s own memorial service. A common final for two lives which could have hardly been more different in their trajectories and outcome—yet from there on, were to be equal again.