The Love Affairs of Great Musicians (Vol. 1&2). Hughes Rupert
not knowing his growing fame nor dreaming of leaving Eisenstadt, save when he mused on Italy. Then Boselli died and he began to feel the ennui (le noje) of a void in his days. It was then that he went to London."
This mistress of Haydn's, whom Carpani and Fétis call Boselli and whom Dies calls Pulcelli, is now generally called Polzelli, following the spelling in Haydn's own handwriting. The pleasant legend Carpani gives of Haydn's life with this woman, undisturbed by ambition until her death, is as much upset by later writers as is the spelling of her name. Pohl, closely followed by Haydn's recent biographer, Schmidt, describes Luigia Polzelli as a Neapolitan who was nineteen when she was engaged to sing at the theatre of the Prince Esterházy. She was the wife of Anton Polzelli, an insignificant and sickly violinist, with whom she was apparently not in love. Luigia is pictured—doubtless by guesswork—as not beautiful, but of a pleasing appearance, showing the indications of her Italian birth in "her small slim face, her dark complexion, her black eyes, her chestnut-coloured hair; her body of medium height and elegant form."
"To this woman," says Schmidt, "Haydn fetched his own deep and lasting sorrow. Polzelli was in the same position as he: she lived unhappily with her spouse. Whether she honestly returned Haydn's love cannot be known. Facts hint that she often abused and took advantage of his good nature. But for all that she beautified his life, so often joyless, by the tenderness which she awoke in him; and the woman who throughout twenty years could do that, deserved well of the man whose friend she was; and she earns our consideration and sympathy besides. From London the master wrote her the tenderest letters. Both, as their correspondence shows, only postponed their union, till the day when 'four eyes shall be closed,'
"Yet when finally both were free, Time had worked his almighty influence; Haydn had grown gray; outwardly as well as spiritually an estrangement had widened between them, and of their once so dear a desire there is no more word. Yet Haydn never ceased to provide for his friend, as well as to care for the education and the success of her sons. The elder, Pietro, Haydn's favourite, on whom he hung with his whole heart, died early." [Pohl quotes many allusions to him in Haydn's letters.] "The younger, Anton, who was reported without proper foundation to be Haydn's natural son, later became musical director of the prince's chapel, but then gave up music and turned farmer, finally dying of the plague in sad circumstances."
Pohl is somewhat fuller upon this alliance than Schmidt, who, in fact, merely condenses and paraphrases him. He says that Polzelli's maiden name was Moreschi [which, being interpreted, is "Moor," a name once given to Haydn]; she was a mezzo-soprano, who played secondary rôles in the operas. She earned the same salary as her husband, 465 gulden a year. The letters Haydn wrote her were always in Italian, and in one of them he wishes her better rôles, and "a good master who will take the same interest as thy Haydn." Haydn had come to her for sympathy, since, as Pohl says and we have seen, "thanks to his wife he had hell at home" [die Holle im House].
When increasing fame took Haydn by the hand and led him away to royal triumphs in London, he did not take jealousy along with his other luggage. He seems to have heard that his place was promptly filled in Polzelli's heart, but with all his geniality, he could write of the rumoured rival as "this man, whose name I do not know, but who is to be so happy as to possess thee." Then there was a recrudescence of the old ardour:
"Oh, dear, dear Polzelli, thou lingerest always in my heart; never, never shall I forget thee (O cara Polzelli, tu mi stai sempre nel core, mal, mal scordeo di te)."
When some one in London told him that Polzelli had sold the piano he had given her, he could not believe it, and only wrote her, "See how they tease me about you" (vedi come mi seccano per via di te). Still less will he believe that she has spoken ill of him, and he writes:
"May God bless thee, and forgive thee everything, for I know that love speaks in thee. Be careful for thy good name, I beg thee, and think often of thy Haydn, who cherishes and tenderly loves thee and to thee will always be true."
Even to Bologna, whither Polzelli went with her two sons, says Pohl, "followed Haydn's love—and his gold." He intended after his first London visit to go to Italy to visit her, and wrote further:
"I cherish thee and love thee as on that first day, and am always sad that I cannot do more for you. Yet have patience. Surely the day will come when I can show thee how much I love thee."
Loisa's choice of a spouse had been unhappy, as so many marriages have been where the wife is a singer on the stage, and the husband a fiddler in the band. Haydn seems to have sympathised with Loisa in her unhappy domestic affairs, as cordially as she had sympathised with him in his. He had sympathy, too, for her similarly ill-matched sister, Christine Negri, for he writes of her as—
"Already long separated from her husband, that beast, she has been as unhappy as even you, and awakes my sympathy."
Also in March, 1791, he wrote Loisa about her husband in a manner implying that he was a brute or a maniac: "Thou hast done well to have him taken to the hospital to save thy life." Haydn and Loisa, being Catholics, never thought of seeking divorce: their only hope of celebrating a formal marriage lay in the death of both her brutish husband and his shrewish wife—"when four eyes shall close." Loisa's husband was the first to oblige, for in August, 1791, his death wrings a charitable word from even Haydn:
"Thy poor husband! I tell thee that Providence has managed well in freeing thee from thy heavy burden, for it is better to be in the other world, than useless in this one. The poor fellow has suffered enough."
Later he writes:
"DEAR POLZELLI:—Probably that time will come which we have so often longed for. Already two eyes are closed. But the other two—ah, well, as God wills!" Eight years more, and the reluctant and wide-eyed Anna Haydn was foiled of her desire to be a widow in the snug cottage of her choice. The lovers at last were both single. But now, freed of their shackles, why do they not rush to each other's arms? The only answer we receive is this chill and shocking document found long after Haydn's death; it is written in Italian and dated shortly after Frau Haydn's death:
"I, the undersigned, promise Signora Loisa Polzelli (in case I shall be disposed to marry again) to take no other for wife than the said Loisa Polzelli; and if I remain a widower, I promise the said Loisa Polzelli after my death to leave her a life pension of 300 gulden, that is 300 florins in Vienna money. Valid before every court. I sign myself,
"JOSEPH HAYDN,
"Maestro di Cappella of his Highness, the Prince Esterhazy.
Vienna, May 23, 1800."
On this sad and icy postscript to the ardent love affair, Schmidt comments: "The form of this writing leaves the conclusion plain, that Haydn was forced to this act by the Polzelli. This throws a poor light on her character, and we dare not evade the conclusion that, for twenty years in this love affair for life, she had in mind a business arrangement with the master."
Thus cynically writes Schmidt of the woman who for a score of years occupied Haydn's affections. And all of the biographers are inclined to heap upon her more or less contempt; but as you shall see a little later, the genial master himself was not above reproach, and Loisa's anxiety was not unfounded, for her Joseph was casting amorous glances elsewhere. Thus after the long ardour, the love letters have frozen into a hard and fast negative betrothal in which Haydn promises to marry no one else. This, Schmidt says, was dragged out of Haydn. But, if such a bond were necessary, it speaks surely as ill for Haydn as for the woman who had given her life and her good name to brighten his joyless heart.
Yet, dead as his love was, honour remained with him, though it was a rather close-reckoning honour. Three months later he answered with money her request for house-rent, and in a will dated May 5, 1801, occurs this clause, cancelling his former agreement, and making new provisions:
"To the widow Aloysia Polzelli, formerly singer at Prince Nikolaus Esterházy's, payable in ready money six months after my death, 100 florins, and each year from the date of my death, for her life … 150 florins. After her death her son, Anton Polzelli, to receive 150 florins for one year, having always been a good son to his mother and a grateful pupil to me. N.B.—I hereby revoke the obligation in Italian, signed by me, which may be produced