Book Excerpt: ...s Precocity--Informal Music-making--His First Teacher--Hainburg--"A Regular Little Urchin"--Attacks the Drum-- A Piece of Good Luck--A Musical Examination--Goes to Vienna--Choir School of St Stephen's--A House of Suffering--Lessons at the Cathedral--A Sixteen-Part Mass--Juvenile Escapades--"Sang like a Crow"--Dismissed from the Choir.Haydn's position, alike in music and in musical biography, is almost unique. With the doubtful exception of Sebastian Bach, no composer of the first rank ever enjoyed a more ...
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Book Excerpt: ...s Precocity--Informal Music-making--His First Teacher--Hainburg--"A Regular Little Urchin"--Attacks the Drum-- A Piece of Good Luck--A Musical Examination--Goes to Vienna--Choir School of St Stephen's--A House of Suffering--Lessons at the Cathedral--A Sixteen-Part Mass--Juvenile Escapades--"Sang like a Crow"--Dismissed from the Choir.Haydn's position, alike in music and in musical biography, is almost unique. With the doubtful exception of Sebastian Bach, no composer of the first rank ever enjoyed a more tranquil career. Bach was not once outside his native Germany; Haydn left Austria only to make those visits to England which had so important an influence on the later manifestations of his genius: His was a long, sane, sound, and on the whole, fortunate existence. For many years he was poor and obscure, but if he had his time of trial, he never experienced a time of failure. With practical wisdom he conquered the Fates and became eminent. A hard, struggling youth merged into an easy middle-age, and late...
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