wealthy musical amateur, the Baron von Furnberg, who frequently
gave concerts at his country house at Weinzierl, near Vienna,
invited him to take the direction of these performances and
compose for their programmes. It was for this nobleman that he
wrote his first string quartet, the one in B flat beginning--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

This composition was rapidly followed by seventeen other works
of the same class, all written between 1755 and 1756.

Taken for an Impostor

Haydn's connection with Furnberg and the success of his
compositions for that nobleman at once gave him a distinction
among the musicians and dilettanti of Vienna. He now felt
justified in increasing his fees, and charged from 2 to 5 florins
for a month's lessons. Remembering the legend of his unboylike
fastidiousness, and the undoubted nattiness of his later years,
it is curious to come upon an incident of directly opposite
tendency. A certain Countess von Thun, whose name is associated
with Beethoven, Mozart and Gluck, met with one of his clavier
sonatas in manuscript, and expressed a desire to see him. When
Haydn presented himself, the countess was so struck by his shabby
appearance and uncouth manners that it occurred to her he must be
an impostor! But Haydn soon removed her doubts by the pathetic
and realistic account which he gave of his lowly origin and his
struggles with poverty, and the countess ended by becoming his
pupil and one of his warmest friends.