Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser

The sound file given to the right (played on a piano) uses the harmony Haydn employed for the string quartet version of his song, which he prepared later in 1797.

The lyrics are as follows:

The song was written when Austria was seriously threatened by Revolutionary France. The story of the song's genesis was narrated in 1847 by Anton Schmid, who was Custodian of the Austrian National Library in Vienna:[1]

In England, Haydn came to know the favourite British national anthem, 'God Save the King', and he envied the British nation for a song through which it could, at festive occasions, show in full measure its respect, love, and devotion to its ruler.

When the Father of Harmony returned to his beloved Kaiserstadt,[2] he related these impressions to that real friend, connoisseur, supporter and encourager of many a great and good one of Art and Science, Freiherr van Swieten, Prefect of the I. R. Court Library, who at the time was at the head of the Concert Spirituel (supported by high aristocracy) and likewise Haydn's particular patron.[3] Haydn wished that Austria, too, could have a similar national anthem, wherein it could display a similar respect and love for its Sovereign. Also, such a song could be used in the fight then taking place with those forcing the Rhine; it could be used in a noble way to inflame the heart of the Austrians to new heights of devotion to the princes and fatherland, and to incite to combat, and to increase, the mob of volunteer soldiers who had been collected by a general proclamation.

Freiherr van Swieten hastily took counsel with His Excellency, the then President of Lower Austria, Franz Count von Saurau ... and so there came into being a song which, apart from being one of Haydn's greatest creations, has won the crown of immortality.

It is also true that this high-principled Count used the most opportune moment to introduce a Volksgesang,[4] and thus he called to life those beautiful thoughts which will delight connoisseurs and amateurs here and abroad.

He immediately ordered the poet Lorenz Haschka to draft the poetry and then requested our Haydn to set it to music.

In January 1797, this double task was resolved, and the first performance of the Song was ordered for the birthday of the Monarch.

Saurau himself later wrote:

I had a text fashioned by the worthy poet Haschka; and to have it set to music, I turned to our immortal compatriot Haydn, who, I felt, was the only man capable of creating something that could be placed at the side of ... "God Save the King".[5]

"Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" was first performed on the Emperor's birthday, 12 February 1797. It proved popular, and came to serve unofficially as Austria's first national anthem.

As elsewhere in Haydn's music, it has been conjectured that Haydn took part of his material from folk songs he knew. This hypothesis has never achieved unanimous agreement, the alternative being that Haydn's original tune was adapted by the people in various versions as folk songs. For discussion, see Haydn and folk music.

One claimed folk source of "Gott erhalte" is a Croatian song, known in Međimurje and northern regions of Croatia under the name "Stal se jesem".[6] The version below was collected by a field worker in the Croatian-speaking Austrian village of Schandorf.

"Jutro rano ja se stanem" 

Autograph sketch of "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser"

Irrespective of the original source, Haydn's own compositional efforts went through multiple drafts, discussed by Rosemary Hughes in her biography of the composer.[7] Hughes reproduces the draft fragment given below (i.e., the fifth through eighth lines of the song) and writes: "His sketches, preserved in the Vienna National Library, show the self-denial and economy with which he struggled to achieve [the song's] seemingly inevitable climax, pruning the earlier and more obviously interesting version of the fifth and sixth lines, which would have anticipated, and so lessened, its overwhelming effect."

The original version of the song (see autograph score, above) included a single line for voice with a rather crude piano accompaniment, with no dynamic indications and what Jones calls "an unevenness of keyboard sonority".[8] This version was printed in many copies (two different printers were assigned to the work) and sent to theatres and opera houses across the Austrian territories with instructions for performance.[8] The Vienna premiere took place in the Burgtheater on 12 February 1797, the day the song was officially released. The Emperor was present, attending a performance of Dittersdorf's opera Doktor und Apotheker and Joseph Weigl's ballet Alonzo und Cora. The occasion celebrated his 29th birthday.[8]

Not long after, Haydn later wrote three additional versions of his song:

• He first wrote a version for orchestra, called "much more refined" by Jones.[8]
• During 1797, Haydn was working on a commission for six string quartets from Count Joseph Erdödy. He conceived the idea of composing a slow movement for one of the quartets consisting of the Emperor's hymn as theme, followed by four variations, each involving the melody played by one member of the quartet. The finished quartet, now often called the "Emperor" quartet, was published as the third of the Opus 76 quartets, dedicated to Count Erdödy.[8] It is perhaps Haydn's most famous work in this genre.
• The last version Haydn wrote was a piano reduction of the quartet movement,[8] published by Artaria in 1799.[9] The publisher printed it with the original cruder piano version of the theme, though a modern edition corrects this error.[10]

Joseph Haydn seems to have been particularly fond of his creation. During his frail and sickly old age (1802–1809), the composer often would struggle to the piano to play his song, often with great feeling, as a form of consolation; and as his servant Johann Elssler narrated, it was the last music Haydn ever played:

The Kayser Lied was still played three times a day, though, but on 26 May [1809] at half-past midday the Song was played for the last time and that 3 times over, with such expression and taste, well! that our good Papa was astonished about it himself and said he hadn't played the Song like that for a long time and was very pleased about it and felt well altogether till evening at 5 o'clock then our good Papa began to lament that he didn't feel well...[11]

Elssler goes on to narrate the composer's final decline and death, which occurred on 31 May.

Later composers in the Western classical canon have repeatedly quoted or otherwise employed Haydn's tune, as is demonstrated by the following chronological list. As the tune was widely known, the uses by other composers were heard as quotations and served as an emblem of Austria, of Austrian patriotism, or of the Austrian monarchy.

• Ludwig van Beethoven quotes the last four bars in "Es ist vollbracht", WoO 97, the finale of Georg Friedrich Treitschke's singspiel Die Ehrenpforten (1815). The work celebrates the end of the Napoleonic Wars, essentially the same conflict that gave rise to Haydn's original hymn. It is seldom performed today.[12]
• Franz Schubert used the tune in his Stabat Mater (1816), although he revised this in future editions.
• Carl Czerny wrote Variations on "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" for piano and orchestra or piano and string quartet, his Op. 73 (1824)
• Gioachino Rossini used the tune in his opera Il viaggio a Reims (1825).
• Niccolò Paganini wrote a set of variations on this tune for violin and orchestra in 1828, under the title Maestosa Sonata Sentimentale
• Gaetano Donizetti used the tune in his opera Maria Stuarda (1835), at act 3, scene 8, "Deh! Tu di un'umile preghiera ..."
• Clara Schumann used the tune as the basis for her "Souvenir de Vienne", Op. 9 (1838) for solo piano.[13]
• Bedřich Smetana used the tune in his Festive Symphony (1853), which the composer intended to dedicate to the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.
• Henryk Wieniawski wrote a set of variations on the tune for unaccompanied violin (Variations on the Austrian National Anthem, from L'école Moderne, Op. 10; 1853).
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky arranged the work for orchestra in 1874, apparently in connection with a visit to Russia by the Austrian Emperor. The arrangement was published only in 1970.
• Anton Bruckner wrote his Improvisationskizze Ischl 1890 to be played on the organ during the wedding of Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria.
• Béla Bartók employed the theme in his symphonic poem Kossuth (1903); in this patriotic work about the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848 the theme serves as an emblem for the Austrian enemy.

• Haydn and folk music
• Heil dir im Siegerkranz

• Gerlach, Sonja (1996) Haydn: Variationen über die Hymne 'Gott erhalte'; authentische Fassung für Klavier. Munich: G. Henle.
• Hughes, Rosemary (1970) Haydn. London: Dent.
• Jones, David Wyn (2009) Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Mathew, Nicholas (2013) Political Beethoven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Extracts are posted on line at Google Books.
• Robbins Landon, H. C. and David Wyn Jones (1988) Haydn: His Life and Music, Thames and Hudson.

• Image of the autograph score, from the "aeiou" music history site