On 10 May 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces arrived outside Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire. His French forces had been at war with Austria since mid-April and, with successes at Abensberg, Landshut and Eckmuhl under his belt, the Emperor now had the capital city in his sights.
Napoleon had been here before, of course – in November 1805, when Vienna had given itself up to him without a fight (leading to an audience consisting almost entirely of French soldiers at the premiere of Beethoven’s Fidelio that same month).
As shells fell around them, the Viennese panicked
On this occasion, too, Napoleon promised that, should his army meet no resistance, he would show lenience in victory. However, Archduke Maxmilian, commander of the Austrian forces, fancied his chances of holding out and declined the offer.
Stationing 20 howitzers around the city, Napoleon began his bombardment in the early hours of 12 May. As shells fell around them, Vienna’s residents were sent into panic. One of them, the aforementioned Ludwig van Beethoven, headed to the basement of his brother Carl’s house where, fearing further damage to his already declining hearing, he covered his ears with pillows.
Incidentally, the attack on Vienna did provoke Beethoven's patron, Archduke Rudolph, to leave the city. It's thought that Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 26, Les Adieux, was written as a fond farewell to his patron.
Another Viennese resident, Joseph Haydn, proved a more reassuring presence. ‘Children, don’t be frightened,’ he told those close to him; ‘where Haydn is, nothing can happen to you.’ The great man was correct – for all the chaos, the bombardment caused relatively little damage. Maximilian nonetheless saw sense and surrendered, and within 24 hours French forces were again occupying the city.
An unusual gift from Napoleon to Haydn
Haydn knew that he himself had little time left to live, though. Now aged 77, he was in poor health and, just weeks earlier, had gathered his nearest and dearest for a reading of his will. His last major appearance in public had been over a year earlier when, on 27 March 1808 at Vienna’s University Hall, Antonio Salieri (yes, that Salieri, as depicted in the film Amadeus) had conducted a grand concert of The Creation in his honour.
It was a much lower-key performance of music from The Creation that would bring pleasure to the dying Haydn as his home city endured its darkest days. On 17 May 1809, Clément Sulemy, an officer of the French Hussars, was sent over to the composer’s house – outside which Napoleon had stationed a guard of honour – to sing The Creation's tenor aria ‘Mit Würd’ und Hoheit Angetan’ (In Native Worth and Honour Clad).
'Tears of joy'
Sulemy sang in ‘so manly, so sublime a style, and with so much truth of expression and real musical sentiment,’ wrote the composer and pianist Andreas Steicher in a letter, ‘that Haydn could not restrain his tears of joy and assured the singer as well as the people in his house that he had never before heard the aria sung in so masterly a manner. After half an hour’s visit the officer mounted his horse in order to go against the enemy.’
Haydn was not quite done with music. Just over a week later, he summoned enough strength to sit at the piano and perform his ‘Emperor’s Hymn’ (better known today as the Deutschlandlied), not once but three times in quick succession and, as reported by his copyist Johann Elssler, ‘with an expressiveness that surprised even himself’.
Haydn's death went unheralded
They would be the last notes he played as, soon after midnight on 31 May, Franz Joseph Haydn breathed his last. With Vienna still in turmoil, his death went largely unheralded – it would only be the following month that, accompanied by Mozart’s Requiem, the great father of Austrian music received the proper state send-off he deserved, attended by the great and good.
By then, Clément Sulemy was, probably, also dead. He is believed to have been killed on 22 May at the Battle of Aspern where, in trying to cross the Danube, the French suffered a surprise defeat. Just days after his most famous moment, in which he brought serenity to a great composer in his final days, Sulemy became yet another victim of an increasingly bloody conflict.