in comic opera, and it is really to be regretted that while
the words of "Der Neue Krumme Teufel" have been preserved, the music has
been lost. It would have been interesting to see what the young
composer had made of a subject which--from Le Sage's "Le Diable Boiteux"
onwards--has engaged the attention of so many playwrights and musicians.
The opera was produced at the Stadt Theatre in the spring of 1752,
and was frequently repeated not only in Vienna, but in Berlin, Prague,
Saxony and the Breisgau.

An Aristocratic Appointment

An event of this kind must have done something for Haydn's reputation,
which was now rapidly extending. Porpora seems also to have been of
no small service to him in the way of introducing him to aristocratic
acquaintances. At any rate, in 1755, a wealthy musical amateur, the
Baron von Furnberg, who frequently gave concerts at his country house
at Weinzierl, near Vienna, invited him to take the direction of these
performances and compose for their programmes. It was for this nobleman
that he wrote his first string quartet, the one in B flat beginning--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

This composition was rapidly followed by seventeen other works of the
same class, all written between 1755 and 1756.

Taken for an Impostor

Haydn's connection with Furnberg and the success of his compositions
for that nobleman at once gave him a distinction among the musicians and
dilettanti of Vienna. He now felt justified in increasing his fees,
and charged from 2 to 5 florins for a month's lessons. Remembering the
legend of his unboylike fastidiousness, and the undoubted nattiness
of his later years, it is curious to come upon an incident of directly
opposite tendency. A certain Countess von Thun, whose name is associated
with Beethoven, Mozart and Gluck, met with one of his clavier sonatas
in manuscript, and expressed a desire to see him. When Haydn presented
himself, the countess was so struck by his shabby appearance and uncouth
manners that it occurred to her he must be an impostor! But Haydn soon
removed her doubts by the pathetic and realistic account which he gave
of his lowly origin and his struggles with poverty, and the countess
ended by becoming his pupil and one of his warmest friends.

A Count's Capellmeister

Haydn is said to have held for a time the post of organist to the Count
Haugwitz; but his first authenticated fixed engagement dates from
1759, when, through the influence of Bar