de a proper use of them."

This is a sufficient answer to the absurd statement which has been made,
and is still sometimes repeated, that Bach was jealous of the young
composer and abused him to his friends. A writer in the European
Magazine for October 1784, says that Bach was "amongst the number of
professors who wrote against our rising author." He mentions others as
doing the same thing, and then continues: "The only notice Haydn took of
their scurrility and abuse was to publish lessons written in imitation
of the several styles of his enemies, in which their peculiarities were
so closely copied and their extraneous passages (particularly those
of Bach of Hamburg) so inimitably burlesqued, that they all felt the
poignancy of his musical wit, confessed its truth, and were silent."
Further on we read that the sonatas of Ops. 13 and 14 were "expressly
composed in order to ridicule Bach of Hamburg." All this is manifestly
a pure invention. Many of the peculiarities of Emanuel Bach's style are
certainly to be found in Haydn's works--notes wide apart, pause bars,
surprise modulations, etc., etc.--but if every young composer who adopts
the tricks of his model is to be charged with caricature, few can hope
to escape. The truth is, of course, that every man's style, whether in
music or in writing, is a "mingled yarn" of many strands, and it serves
no good purpose to unravel it, even if we could.

Violin Studies

Haydn's chief instrument was the clavier, but in addition to that
he diligently practiced the violin. It was at this date that he took
lessons on the latter instrument from "a celebrated virtuoso." The name
is not mentioned, but the general opinion is that Dittersdorf was the
instructor. This eminent musician obtained a situation as violinist in
the Court Orchestra at Vienna in 1760; and, curiously enough, after many
years of professional activity, succeeded Haydn's brother, Michael,
as Capellmeister to the Bishop of Groswardein in Hungary. He wrote an
incredible amount of music, and his opera, "Doctor and Apotheker," by
which he eclipsed Mozart at one time, has survived up to the present.
Whether or not he gave Haydn lessons on the violin, it is certain that
the pair became intimate friends, and had many happy days and some
practical jokes together. One story connected with their names sounds
apocryphal, but there is no harm in quoting it. Haydn and Dittersdorf
were strolling down a back street when they heard a f