Haydn’s audition

Karl Georg Reutter II was appointed choirmaster at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna in 1738.  The following year he went on tour to recruit choristers.  In the town of Hainburg, Joseph Haydn (at stage seven years of age) auditioned.  The contemporary biography Guiseppe Carpani recalled:

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 more especially charmed with the beauty of the young voice. He remarked that the lad did not shake (trill), and smilingly asked him the reason. The boy replied promptly: “How can you expect me to shake when my cousin does not know how to himself?””Come here,” said Reutter, “I will teach you.” He took him between his knees, 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 pockets. [According to Dies, he also gave Sepperl a piece of money.] His delight may be readily conceived. Haydn often mentioned this anecdote to me, and added, laughing, that whenever he happened to shake he still thought he saw those beautiful cherries.

Cited in: Geiringer, Karl (1946) Haydn: A Creative Life in Music.  New York: W. W. Norton, p.28.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

George Gershwin at the piano
The theatre director Rouben Mamoulian describes Gershwin’s playing: George at the piano was George happy … like a sorcerer celebrating his Sabbath.  He would draw out a lovely melody like a golden thread, then juggle it, twist it and toss it around mischievously, weave it into unexpected intricate patterns, and hurl it into a cascade […]
A little help with a fugue
Rachmaninoff had a little help with a fugue exam at the Moscow Conservatory in 1891: By mistake the examinations of Rachmaninoff in both piano and fugue were scheduled for the same day and hour, so his fugue examination was transferred to the following day, when he was to be examined alone, the rest of the […]
Ravel’s fashion sense
Ravel was always particular about his sense of fashion.  As Léon-Paul Fargue recalled: Even when he was wasted by illness, Ravel never appeared unkept even among his closest friends.  All his life he kept the perfect, discriminating taste which led him to match his braces to his blue or pink silk shirts, much to the […]
A musical solution
“Every disease is a music problem, its cure a musical solution.” Novalis, 18th century German author, mystic and philosopher. Cited in: Inge Kjemtrup, “The power of music therapy”, Pianist, Issue 59, April-May 2011. Warners Group Publications, p.66.
Is it worth writing?
“Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.” Gustav Holst Cited in: Classic FM, May 2011
Schumann on music
As to what concerns the knotty question in general of how far instrumental music may go in the representation of thoughts and events, many are here too anxious in their attitude. We are certainly wrong if we believe that composers set out pen and paper to realize the miserable intention of expressing, describing, or painting […]
Widmann on Brahms
Widmann, a Swiss poet, describes Brahms’ performing at the piano: The broad leonine chest, the Herculean shoulders, the mighty head which the player sometimes threw back with an energetic jerk, the pensive, handsome brow that seemed to radiate an inner illumination, and the Germanic eyes which scintillated with a wondrous fire between their fair lashes […]
What drives the wise
“There is hardly any treatise which could be too learned for me. I have not the slightest pretension to what is properly called erudition. Yet from my childhood I have striven to understand what the better and wiser people of every age were driving at in their works. Shame on an artist who does not […]
It is cruel that music should be so beautiful
“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.  It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom.  The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love.  The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.” Benjamin Britten
I Will Walk in the Presence of the Lord – Psalm 115 (116b), Psalm 114 (116a)
Title: I will walk in the presence of the Lord Text:     – Psalm 115 (116b):10, 15-19 (R. Psalm 114 (116a):9)     – Psalm 114 (116a):1-6, 8-9. R. v.9. Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF Score and part Sample: