LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Joseph Haydn: Choir
built 618 days ago
Top soloists like soprano Emma Kirkby and bass Michael George join with the Choir of New College, Oxford, and the Academy of Ancient Music Orchestra and Chorus to present Haydn's stirring oratorio. Recorded live at the Gloucester Cathedral and conducted by Christopher Hogwood, the program blends music and visual images to tell the story of the origins of the natural world. 102 min. Soundtracks: English DTS 5.1, PCM stereo; Subtitles: English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish.
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Haydn had a spectacular voice and his musicality was precise. Johann Franc, impressed by Haydn’s voice, insisted that Haydn’s parents allow Haydn to live with him to study music. Franc was a school principal and the choir director of a church in Hainburg. Haydn’s parents allowed him to go in hopes that he would amount to something very special. Haydn studied mostly music, but ... Latin, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Haydn spent most of his childhood singing in church choirs.
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Haydn got on very well at St. Stephen’s until his voice began to break. So far the Empress had been pleased with his singing, but now she declared that "young Haydn sings like a crow." As if he could help his voice breaking! The opinion of the Empress was law to the choirmaster; so he began to look for an opportunity of getting rid of the boy. It came soon enough, and unfortunately it was Haydn himself who provided it. Always fond of practical joking, he one day tried a pair of new scissors on the pig-tail of a fellow chorister. The pig-tail was clean removed, and the joker was condemned to be caned. In vain Haydn begged to be let off, declaring he would rather leave than submit to the indignity.
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Haydn trained his younger brother Michael when he joined the choir school three years later; it was customary for the older choirboys to instruct the younger ones. Although great Haydn's voice was, he lost it when he went through puberty. Michael, who ... had a beautiful voice, received the attention Haydn was used to getting. Haydn was dismissed from the school when he was 18.
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Haydn's parents noticed that their son was musically talented and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any serious musical training. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Franck, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Franck in his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Franck to Hainburg (seven miles away) and never again lived with his parents. He was six years old.
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Life in the Franck household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing. However, he did begin his musical training there, and soon was able to play both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg were soon hearing him sing treble parts in the church choir.
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