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Scan 394
The violin and its music, 1881
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 360. See the scan on archive.org.
1Before making reference to Haydn's labours in the field of stringed instrument music, a word or two must be said of his early life. When Handel was in his forty-seventh year, Haydn was in his first: like Handel he played the Violin in his boyhood. Of Haydn's connection with Porpora, the reader has already been informed. His early acquaintance with Herr von Fürnberg, a rich and enthusiastic amateur, was productive of results of much musical importance, since it was at the instigation of Fürnberg that he composed, in 1755, his first quartett, which was followed by seventeen others within twelve months.
3In 1759 Haydn became Count Morzin's music director at Lukavec, near Pilsen, at the modest salary of £20 per annum with board and lodging. At Lukavec he composed his first Symphony, a work of three movements for two Violins, Tenor, Bass, two Oboes, and two Horns. After remaining in the Count's service nine years, Haydn entered that of Esterhazy in 1761. It was for Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy that he composed so much music for the Baritone—a bowed instrument of a complicated character, and much used in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Haydn appears to have admired the qualities of this instrument, for he practised it with great assiduity, but finding his patron desirous of being left to shine alone, he relinquished altogether all idea of playing it.
5In 1781 Haydn, with the assistance of General
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