His room abounds with keepsakes brought to him by visitors. There are medals, medallions and certificates on display, as well as shelves of mementoes from emperors and empresses and other tokens of his station. Many of these objects are the subjects of stories Doctor Haydn happily tells. One is a gold watch, and I have heard him recount its tale several times to visitors, beginning each telling by saying, ‘You have heard of the admiral, Nelson?’ The listener knows well of Nelson and his deeds, and very likely is aware that Doctor Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis has also become known fondly as the Lord Nelson Mass. The astute visitor remarks on how it came to have that name, through the joyous coincidence of its premiere performance in Eisenstadt and the arrival that day of news that Nelson had defeated Napoléon’s fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Doctor Haydn allows this observation before passing them his treasure and surprising them by saying, ‘This is the watch he wore that very day.’

It was a gift from one friend to another, exchanged for the composer’s pen that Doctor Haydn had used to write a cantata for Lady Hamilton, when Nelson and the Lady visited Vienna in 1800. The suggestion of the exchange was Nelson’s, and made out of gratitude for the gift of music, and out of regard and friendship. Doctor Haydn and I have talked of Nelson more than once, as my uncle John served with the admiral, then a post-captain, on HMS Boreas in the 1780s.

The watch is but one treasure in this room, in this house that the French may yet bomb, burn or in some other way desecrate, and I will not allow it to slip from memory if it is soon nowhere else. The house as it now stands is a fine sort of place, with the second storey added by Doctor Haydn some years ago. His quarters and music room are up there, both of them as commodious as needs be, as the Kapellmeister’s numerous tokens of esteem and appreciation share space with a library, an English fortepiano, a clavichord and the many other instruments and resources that might be expected of a composer of the first rank.

The remainder of us are quartered downstairs. Johann, as copyist and valet, has the largest chamber. I have the smallest, a converted scullery at the back, but it is kinder than that description suggests. It has its own small fireplace and a view of the garden, which is a three-sided courtyard with beds of a formal design, a paved path the shape of a keyhole and several fruit trees. The cherry is now in blossom and, from the desk at which I write, I would call it a wonderful spring, if not for the French.