With the equally, and yet more popularly celebrated Haydn, Dr. Burney was in correspondence many years before that noble and truly CREATIVE composer visited England; and almost enthusiastic was the admiration with which the musical historian opened upon the subject, and the matchless merits, of that sublime genius, in the fourth volume of the History of Music. “I am now,” he says, “happily arrived at that part of my narrative where it is necessary to speak of HAYDN, the incomparable HAYDN; from whose productions I have received more pleasure late in life, when tired of most other music, than I ever enjoyed in the most ignorant and rapturous part of my youth, when every thing was new, and the disposition to be pleased was undiminished by criticism, or satiety.” |