2-720-408 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'He was imitating the playing of a violin', (1907). Mathias Haydn becomes aware that his five-year-old son Joseph is musically gifted: 'following with the closest attention his father's performance on the harp. In his hands were two sticks, with which he was imitating the playing of a violin, keeping accurate time with his bow to the rhythm of the music. The rapt expression on the boy's face was not lost upon the father, and thoughts which more than once had occupied Mathias's mind as he watched his child's clever imitation of the village schoolmaster's playing of the violin were recurring with redoubled force on this occasion.' An episode from the life of Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). From "Story-Lives of Great Musicians", by F.J. Rowbotham. [Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. Ltd, London, 1907]