etty 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

Joseph Haydn, to give the composer the name which he now usually bears,
was the second of the twelve children born to the Rohrau wheelwright.
The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but it was either the 31st
of March or the 1st of April 1732. Haydn himself gave the latter as
the correct date, alleging that his brother Michael had fixed upon the
previous day to save him from being called an April fool! Probably we
shall not be far off the mark if we assume with Pohl that Haydn was born
in the night between the 31st of March and the 1st of April.

His Precocity

Very few details have come down to us in regard to his earlier
years; and such details as we have refer almost wholly to his musical
precocity. It was not such a precocity as that of Mozart, who was
playing minuets at the age of four, and writing concertos when he
was