No composer has ever given greater or purer pleasure by his compositions than is given by "papa" Haydn; there is an unceasing flow of cheerfulness and lively tone in his music, even in the most solemn pieces, as in his Masses, the predominant feeling is that of gladness; as he once said to Carpani: "At the thought of God my heart leaps for joy, and I cannot help my music doing the same." But it is not alone as the writer of graceful and beautiful music that Haydn has a claim on our remembrance; he has been truly called the "father of the symphony." Mozart once said: "It was from Haydn that I first learned the true way to compose quartettes;" and "The Creation," which must ever be counted one of the masterpieces of oratorio music, was his work. His family were of the people, his father being a master wheelwright at Rohrau, a small Austrian village on the borders of Lower Austria and Hungary and his mother having been employed as a cook in the castle of Count Harrach, the principal lord of the district. Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732 the second child of his parents; and as ten brothers and sisters afterward came into the world, it can easily be understood that his lot was not a very luxurious one. His parents were simple, honest people of the laboring class, very ignorant, but, like most German peasants, with a certain love for and facility in music, not quite so common in this country. Haydn's father had a good voice, and could sing well, accompanying himself on the harp, though he did not know a single note of written music. Then there was the village schoolmaster, who could actually play the violin, and whom little Joseph watched with wondering eyes, extracting those marvellously sweet sounds from his wooden instrument, until, with the child's spirit of imitation, as his parents sang their "Volkslieder," the little fellow, perched on a stone bench, gravely handled two pieces of wood of his own as if they were bow and fiddle, keeping exact time, and flourishing the bow in the approved fashion of the schoolmaster. From this very little incident came an important change in his life; for a relation, Johann Mathias Frankh, of Hainburg, happened to be present on one occasion, and, thinking he saw an aptitude for music in the boy, offered to take him into his own school at Hainburg, where accordingly young Haydn went at the age of six years.