quick impressionableness to sound, a delicately-strung ear, and
an acute perception of rhythm.

Informal Music-Making

We have seen how the father had his musical evenings with his
harp and the voices of wife and children. These informal
rehearsals were young Haydn's delight. We hear more particularly
of his attempts at music-making by sawing away upon a piece of
stick at his father's side, pretending to play the violin like
the village schoolmaster under whom he was now learning his
rudiments. The parent was hugely pleased at these manifestations
of musical talent in his son. He had none of the absurd, old-world
ideas of Surgeon Handel as to the degrading character of the
divine art, but encouraged the youngster in every possible way.
Already he dreamt--what father of a clever boy has not done the
same?--that Joseph would in some way or other make the family
name famous; and although it is said that like his wife, he had
notions of the boy becoming a priest, he took the view that his
progress towards holy orders would be helped rather than hindered
by the judicious cultivation of his undoubted taste for music.

His First Teacher

While these thoughts were passing through his head, the chance
visit of a relation practically decided young Haydn's future. His
grandmother, being left a widow, had married a journeyman
wheelwright, Matthias Seefranz, and one of their children married
a schoolmaster, Johann Matthias Frankh. Frankh combined with the
post of pedagogue that of choir-regent at Hainburg, the ancestral