One day a cousin of Mathias, a certain Johann Mathias Franck, came over from Hainburg. Franck seemed a person sent by Providence to further Maria Haydn’s wishes. He was a school official, as well as precentor of the Church of St. Philip and St. James. At once he noticed “Sepperl’s” musical inclinations and told the parents they would be wise to allow him to take the boy to Hainburg, where he could be more thoroughly schooled than in Rohrau. Naturally, he was ready to supply the youngster’s bed and board (for which, he assumed, his cousin Mathias would be willing to pay). The good Maria hesitated. “Sepperl” was not yet six and though he would not be far away she felt uncertain how soon or how often she might see her boy. And what of those holy orders? Franck brushed the objections aside; the boy should have care and understanding, not to forget an education unobtainable in a village. Moreover, if “Sepperl” were eventually to take holy orders his musical training would be most helpful.
The die was cast! The barely six year old lad left his father’s roof, never to return, save for a most brief and infrequent visit. “Sepperl’s” mother was right. To all intents, the boy had left his family forever. Yet throughout his life Haydn harbored the tenderest feelings for his mother and never reproached her for permitting him to leave her. “She had always given the most tender care to his welfare”, he told his intimates when he was an old man. And Karl Geiringer, in his beautiful Haydn biography, recounts how, in 1795, “when the then world-famous composer visited Rohrau to see the monument erected in his honor by Count Harrach, he knelt down and kissed the threshold of the humble cottage he had shared with his parents for less than six years.”
Impressions crowded on “Sepperl” in Hainburg. He had numerous opportunities to assist Franck in his miscellaneous and seemingly unending tasks in the school house, on the organ bench, in conducting the singers and instrumentalists at church services. One of the duties of Franck (and to some extent, no doubt, of the boy Haydn) was to keep the church register, look after the church clock and ring the bells for services “and for special occasions, such as thunderstorms”. In an autobiographical sketch which Haydn wrote in 1778 he said, among other things: “Our Almighty Father had endowed me with so much facility in music that even in my sixth year I stood up like a man and sang Masses in the church choir and I could play a little on the clavier and violin.” And his biographer, Georg August Griesinger, tells that Haydn studied “the kettledrum as well as other instruments.”
“Sepperl” was kept at work without respite, but he apparently throve on all this learning, all this musical practice and all the household chores which Franck’s wife heaped upon him. Juliana Franck was not at all like his mother. If she expected the boy to help in the household she did not worry about his increasing untidiness. “I could not help perceiving”, said Haydn in his old age when he talked of his Hainburg experiences “that I was gradually getting very dirty, and though I thought rather highly of my little person, I was not always able to avoid stains on my clothes—of which I was dreadfully ashamed; in fact I was a regular little ragamuffin!” Like Schubert at the “Konvikt” he was grossly “undernourished”. He wore a wig “for cleanliness’ sake”. Yet his education, both musical and otherwise, was greatly furthered by his sojourn in Hainburg. Even if he was hungry and dirty, nothing embittered him. And in after years he said of Franck: “I shall be grateful to that man as long as I live, for keeping me so hard at work.” And he had a picture of his early master wherever he lived, besides remembering Franck’s daughter in his will.
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Now, however, occurred another of those strokes of good fortune which punctuated Haydn’s life from his cradle to his grave. Just as Franck turned up in Rohrau to take him to Hainburg, so now there appeared in Hainburg a young man from Vienna who set “Sepperl’s” feet squarely on his further path. Karl Georg Reutter, composer and choirmaster at St. Stephen’s in the capital, was on a trip looking for good choristers. At Hainburg Reutter stayed at the home of the pastor, Anton Palmb, who immediately called his guest’s attention to a boy from Rohrau who had “a weak but sweet voice.” Haydn’s friend, the Italian Carpani, has left us the story of the meeting in some detail: “Reutter gave him a tune to sing at sight. The precision, the purity of tone, the spirit with which the boy executed it surprised him; but he was especially charmed with the beauty of the young voice. He remarked that the lad did not trill, and smilingly asked him the reason. The boy replied promptly: ‘How can you expect me to trill when my cousin does not know how to himself?’ ‘I will teach you’, said Reutter; ‘mark me, I will trill’; and taking the boy between his knees, he showed him how he should produce the notes in rapid succession, control his breath, and agitate the palate. The boy immediately made a good shake. Reutter, enchanted with the success of his pupil, took a plate of fine cherries and emptied them into the boy’s pocket. His delight may be readily conceived. Haydn often mentioned this anecdote to me and added, laughing, that whenever he happened to trill he still thought he saw those beautiful cherries.” Reutter offered to take “Sepperl” to Vienna to be a choirboy at St. Stephens as well as to give him a much more thorough musical education than he had received so far. The matter having been put up to his father and mother, they agreed instantly and with delight, the more so as Reutter promised “to look after their boy.” It was agreed that the lad should start for Vienna when he was eight. His new master gave him some exercises in scale-singing and sight-reading to work at in the meanwhile and, while waiting for the great day to arrive, the youngster diligently worked by himself to develop his voice.
Installed at the Cantor’s house, next to St. Stephen’s, in Vienna, “Sepperl’s” illusions presently suffered a chill. Reutter suddenly turned into a hard taskmaster and an unsympathetic disciplinarian. He was responsible for the education, feeding and clothing of his choirboys, but the meals were wholly insufficient, indeed skimpier than what he had in Hainburg. A. C. Dies writes: “Joseph’s stomach had to get accustomed to continuous fasting. He tried to make up for it with the musical ‘academies’ (concerts given by the choir in the houses of the Viennese nobility), where refreshments were offered to the choristers. As soon as Joseph made this discovery, so important for his stomach, he was seized with an incredible love for ‘academies’. He endeavored to sing as beautifully as possible so as to be known and invited as a skilled performer, and thus find occasions to appease his ravenous hunger.” Moreover Joseph’s musical education was rather one-sided and apart from singing and a little violin and clavier playing Reutter did not bother about his young charge’s training in musical theory. Dr. Geiringer relates that when, on one occasion, Reutter found Joseph working on a twelve-part “Salve Regina” he asked with a sneer: “Oh, you silly child, aren’t two parts enough for you?” But that was about as much as the instruction amounted to. Reutter was actually a composer of no inconsiderable distinction, whose teaching could have been of great help to the aspiring youngster. But in after years Haydn said that he had only two lessons from this master. All the same, he had priceless chances to hear much of the best contemporary sacred music. To Johann Friedrich Rochlitz he once confided: “Proper teachers I have never had. I always started right away with the practical side, first in singing and playing instruments, later in composition. I listened more than I studied but I heard the finest music in all forms that was to be heard in my time, and of this there was much in Vienna. Oh, so much! I listened attentively and tried to turn to good account what most impressed me. Thus little by little my knowledge and my ability were developed.”
The boys from St. Stephen’s sometimes had a chance to perform at the Empress Maria Theresia’s newly built palace of Schönbrunn. When the choir was on one occasion commanded to sing there Joseph, in a burst of boyish exuberance, climbed some scaffolding and appeared suddenly before the Empress’s window. Unawed by the imperial threats the boy repeated the exploit a little later until Maria Theresia ordered the choirmaster to give this “fair-haired blockhead” a proper thrashing. However, being extremely musical herself, and a singer of uncommon merits in the bargain, the Empress could appreciate Joseph’s execution of various church solos. And he was happier than ever when Michael Haydn joined the St. Stephen’s choir and added his exceptionally beautiful soprano voice, of three octaves range, to the ensemble. Joseph was given the duty of instructing his younger brother in a number of matters. Before long Michael’s talents were such as to make him outshine Joseph’s. The latter does not appear to have openly displayed any feelings of jealousy. Yet it might be inquiring too closely to ask if the older boy was wholly pleased when his solos were taken away from him and given to his brother, whose singing so delighted the Emperor and Empress that they once accorded him a special audience, congratulated him and gave him a substantial money present. The good Michael promptly sent half of the money to his father, who had lately lost a cow, and gave the rest to Reutter to save for him. Reutter took such care of it that poor Michael never saw a penny of it!
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Suddenly Joseph’s luck seemed to turn against him. His voice cracked. Maria Theresia began to complain, about 1745, that the boy was “crowing like a cock.” Joseph was keenly distressed, a fact which was not lost on Reutter. He summoned Joseph and intimated that there was a means of doing something about it. Castrati had well-paid positions in the imperial chapel. Joseph seems to have been wise enough to notify his father. Mathias Haydn went post-haste to Vienna and the scheme was dropped. Reutter now waited for his next chance to be rid of a useless chorister. He soon found it, for some imp of mischief provoked Joseph to cut off the pig-tail of another boy. “You will be caned on the hand”, shouted Reutter to the seventeen-year-old Joseph; “of course, you will be expelled after you have been caned”, he went on. And on a chilly November morning in 1749, Haydn found himself on the street, penniless, with exactly three torn shirts and a threadbare coat! If he still remembered his mother’s wish that he should take holy orders he might presently have had a roof over his head. But he had a deep assurance that his destiny lay elsewhere; neither did he appeal to his father for help, because he knew the little household at Rohrau was at the moment passing through a financially difficult time.