Joseph Haydn: The Merry Little Peasant (Opal Wheeler)

Joseph Haydn: The Merry Little Peasant

A simple, inspiring children`s biography of the great musician Haydn. Like the other stories of great composers by Wheeler and Deucher, this one will win its way into the hearts of all music-loving children, and might transform the hearts of those who don’t appreciate it yet. “Little Sepperl [as the child Franz Joseph Haydn was called] always sat on a wooden stool near his father and with two smooth pieces of wood held firmly in his hands, played his own make-believe violin.

His parents watched the boy drawing one stick slowly across the other as he played so seriously, keeping perfect time. Then one day he went to live with his cousin in a town near Vienna, close by the river Danube. There he learned to read music and sing.

Once when the drummer was too sick to march in a procession, little Franz Joseph was asked to take his place. So he practiced all day on the meal barrel with a cloth tied over the top…until he could play the part without a single mistake. Such was the musical beginning of the boy who later played before kings in palaces, and who has left us some of the most beautiful music ever written.

Especially recommended for boys and girls, 8 to 12 years of age. Sturdy, large paperback with numerous illustrations and samples of Haydn’s compositions.

In the Great Composers Series, Opal Wheeler also wrote:

• Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff
• Ludwig Beethoven, and the Chiming Tower Bells
• The Young Brahms
• Mozart, the Wonder Boy
• Handel at the Court of Kings
• Sebastian Bach, the Boy from Thuringia
• Joseph Haydn, the Merry Little Peasant
• Frederic Chopin: Son of Poland (Early Years)
• Frederic Chopin: Son of Poland (Later Years)
• Edward MacDowell and his Cabin in the Pines
• Stephen Foster and his Little Dog Tray
• Paganini: Master of Strings
• The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky
• Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Ballet
• Adventures of Richard Wagner