It is rather a pretty picture that the imagination here conjures
up, but it does not help us very much in trying to account for
the musical genius of the composer. Even the popular idea that
genius is derived from the mother does not hold in Haydn's case.
If Frau Haydn had a genius for anything it was merely for moral
excellence and religion and the good management of her household.
Like Leigh Hunt's mother, however, she was "fond of music, and a
gentle singer in her way"; and more than one intimate of Haydn in
his old age declared that he still knew by heart all the simple
airs which she had been wont to lilt about the house. The maiden
name of this estimable woman was Marie Koller. She was a daughter
of the Marktrichter (market judge), and had been a cook in the
family of Count Harrach, one of the local magnates. Eight years
younger than her husband, she was just twenty-one at her
marriage, and bore him twelve children. Haydn's regard for her
was deep and sincere; and it was one of the tricks of destiny
that she was not spared to witness more of his rising fame,
being cut off in 1754, when she was only forty-six. Matthias
Haydn promptly married again, and had a second family of five
children, all of whom died in infancy. The stepmother survived
her husband--who died, as the result of an accident, in 1763--and
then she too entered a second time into the wedded state. Haydn
can never have been very intimate with her, and he appears to have
lost sight of her entirely in her later years. But he bequeathed a
small sum to her in his will, "to be transferred to her children
should she be no longer alive."

Birth