The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a consolidation and hardening of earlier views on Haydn's music. Whereas Robert Schumann's opinion was subject to change and E. T. A. Hoffmann argued in a way that at least maintained a nominal tone of respect for the composer's relevance, the writers considered in the opening portion of this chapter took for granted the negative clichés in existence—the expressionless and naïve child with an unwaveringly happy disposition, a pedagogically useful preparation for Beethoven, and a servant of the prerevolutionary establishment—without deeper inquiry.

Newer positions would themselves evolve out of these broad categorizations, notably Wagner's idea that Haydn was too closely associated with peasant folk song to express anything of merit. Bülow's scheme to manipulate audiences into hearing more difficult works by interspersing Haydn's compositions as aperitifs formed along the same lines as the spectacular performances of The Creation in the United States. Parallel concepts of the “Haydn style” (a term coined by Bülow) and the “Haydn era” (a phrase coined by Hanslick) would successfully detach the composer from a rooting in reality by placing his works in some form of historical and stylistic limbo.

There were efforts—most notably by Brahms and a close circle of scholastically inclined friends in Vienna—to restore Haydn's reputation. These failed for two reasons. The first was Brahms's inability or unwillingness to take up the issue publically by writing his thoughts down. The second was because the scholars arguing in favor of Haydn's music proved curiously willing to rely on the very anecdotes that had led to the collapse of Haydn's reputation in the first place.

Wagnerian Consolidation

For all the attention garnered by Wagner's voluminous writings, his views on Haydn typically summarized the ideas of E. T. A. Hoffmann as read through the filters of Marx and Liszt. He saw Haydn as a tangential to music history and always used him to forward his larger goal of promoting the symphonies of Beethoven and their importance to his conception of music drama. Wagner demonstrates the extent to which negative attitudes on Haydn's music solidified in the years following 1842.