His mother was born Maria Koller,
and it has been suggested that the name is a variant or corruption of
the Croatian Kolar, meaning a wheelwright. Perhaps she thought that,
bearing such a name, she must marry Mathias, a wheelwright. The point is
that this fact, if fact it be, is another indication or proof of Haydn's
Croatian descent. It seems, indeed, to be established that by blood he
was pure Slav, the name being formerly spelt Hajdgn. It is just as well
for our tongues that it was changed. Franz Joseph (he dropped the Franz)
was the second of twelve children, the only other worth noting being
Michael (in full, Johann Michael), who became a famous musician in his
day, and a friend of the Mozarts in Salzburg. Maria, the mother, died in
1754, the father in 1763.
It has always seemed to me the great composers had fine luck in being
born so long ago, before the towns had grown big and dirty, before the
locomotive and motor-car had denied the beautiful earth, and stinking
factories floundered over all the lands. Carlyle rightly grows eloquent
on the value of the sweet country air and sights and sounds to young
Teufelsdroeckh, and Haydn must have taken impressions of sunrises,
sunsets, midday splendours, and the ever-plashing river flowing to the
far-away sea, that afterwards went to the making of his most wonderful
music.
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