Boy who blurted out ‘Wow!’ in concert...

... invited back as a special guest

By Rosie Pentreath, ClassicFM

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Nine-year-old Ronan Mattin, who went viral earlier in the year for exclaiming ‘wow’ after some magnificent Mozart at Boston’s Symphony Hall, has been invited back by the orchestra.

Back in May, the story of a nine-year-old boy who couldn’t hide his enthusiasm for Mozart went viral.

Now dubbed the “wow child”, young Ronan Mattin exclaimed “wow” loudly in the silence before the applause at the end of The Handel and Haydn Society’s performance of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music, and delighted audiences around the world.

Mattin, who is on the autism spectrum and is “obsessed with musical instruments”, was invited by the orchestra to return to Boston’s Symphony Hall and attend a dress rehearsal as a special guest.

He left school early for the visit and was accompanied by his grandparents, according to The Boston Globe.

Read more: The 9-year-old boy who blurted out ‘Wow!’ at the end of a concert has been found >

“Wow child” Ronan Mattin attends The Handel and Haydn Society’s dress rehearsal for ‘A Mozart Celebration’. Picture: Jessica Rinaldi / Boston Globe

Read more: Sheku Kanneh-Mason: ‘Every child would benefit from music lessons’ >

A witness to the first dress rehearsal in the season of The Handel and Haydn Society’s ‘A Mozart Celebration’ season, Mattin was apparently said few words during his visit, but was “thrilled”.

“He was tapping the window and jumping up and down,” his grandmother, Claire Mattin, told The Boston Globe.

“Yeah, music,” were two of the boy’s well-chosen words. Inside the hall he got the chance to meet instruments and their players up close, and hear the sounds they make in isolation.

Principal Trombonist, Toby Oft, welcomed Mattin to experience the vibrations of the music he was making, explaining “sound is vibrations.”

Orchestra seeks boy who exclaimed 'Wow' after performance of Mozart

Credit: WCRB/Handel and Haydn Society

Ronan’s enthusiasm for music came to global attention when, during a brief moment of silence after The Handel & Haydn Society finished their Mozart, he called out an uninhibited ‘Wow!’ (watch video above).

The awe in his voice made the whole audience and ensemble erupt into laughter and applause, with the orchestra’s CEO David Snead describing it as “one of the most wonderful moments I’ve experienced in the concert hall”.

After the concert, the orchestra began looking for the child – and his grandparents eventually got in touch, after initial hesitation due to concerns of reproach.

The moment went viral as a sheer demonstration of the power of music, and the importance of any appreciation of it being allowed to ring loud and clear in the concert hall.

“Music is vibrations” – Toby Oft introduces Ronan to the trombone. Picture: Jessica Rinaldi / Boston Globe

“These sort of moments, like Ronan’s wonderful ‘wow’ moment, are just electrifying for us, and actually just make us realise exactly what we’re here doing,” the orchestra’s Artistic Director, Harry Christophers, tells The Globe.

“We’re here to give people a release from their daily existence,” Christophers continues. “With Ronan, it’s spontaneous, it’s an innocence, it’s just lovely.”

Hear, hear!

A Haydn Minuet and Trio Sounds Exactly the Same Played Back- and Forwards

Did you know: This Haydn minuet and trio sounds exactly the same played backwards as it does forwards

By Elizabeth Davis, Classic FM London

An enterprising YouTuber has shown that the minuet and trio movements from Haydn's Symphony No.47 sound the same backwards and forwards… and it’s pretty awesome

image: http://assets9.classicfm.com/2016/37/haydn-palindrome-symphony-asset-1473773299-article-0.jpg

However great a piece of music is, it usually sounds pretty pants when it’s played backwards.

But not Haydn’s Minuet and Trio from his Symphony No.47 – nicknamed ‘The Palindrome’ – because Haydn used a neat bit of musical trickery to create a piece that's perfectly symmetrical.

Haydn wrote a ridiculous number of symphonies – 104 in fact. And we made one member of the team listen to them all.

Here’s why it’s called ‘The Palindrome’

The second part of the Minuet is the same music as the first part – but in reverse. And the same thing happens in the Trio .

Here’s the score of the melody from the minuet to demonstrate:

image: http://assets.classicfm.com/2016/37/haydn-palindrome-symphony-1473771572.jpg

Here's what the movement sounds like performed live:

And just in case you're in any doubt that the piece *is* actually a palindrome, one muso geek on YouTube has actually reversed the audio, just to prove the whole Minuet and Trio is really and truly the same backwards as it is forwards.

First you'll hear the whole Minuet and Trio movement played in reverse, before the real version.

Music geek of YouTube, we salute you.

Haydn is known as a bit of a musical trickster – he also wrote the ‘Surprise’ Symphony designed to wake up audience members who chose to doze through his musical creations.

He also wrote the ‘Joke’ string quartet which has a couple of “fake” endings to trick unsuspecting audience members into applauding too early. The cheeky chappy.

The Best of Joseph Haydn

Eighteen Downright Bizarre Classical Music Facts

How many pieces of wood in a violin? What's the most expensive opera costume of all time? Which orchestra was booked to sail on the Titanic? Discover these random, bizarre and thoroughly interesting facts from the world of classical music.

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Haydn's skull

There are two skulls in Haydn’s tomb. His head was stolen by phrenologists and a replacement skull was put in his tomb. In 1954, the real skull was restored but the substitute was not removed.

Joseph Haydn - His Music and His Life

Of humble origins, Franz Joseph Haydn (March 31, 1732 - May 31, 1809) was born in the village of Rohrau, near Vienna. When he was eight years old he was accepted into the choir school of Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he received his only formal education. Dismissed from the choir at the age of 17, he spent the next several years as a struggling free-lance musician. He studied on his own the standard textbooks on counterpoint and took occasional lessons from the noted Italian singing master and composer Nicola Porpora. In 1755 Haydn was engaged briefly by Baron Karl Josef von Furnberg, for whom he apparently composed his first string quartets. A more substantial position followed in 1759, when he was hired as music director by Count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin. Haydn's marriage in 1760 to Maria Anna Keller proved to be unhappy as well as childless.

The turning point in Haydn's fortunes came in 1761, when he was appointed assistant music director to Prince Pal Antál Esterházy; he became full director, or Kapellmeister, in 1762. Haydn served under the patronage of three successive princes of the Esterházy family. The second of these, Pal Antál's brother, Prince Miklós Jozsef Esterházy, was an ardent, cultivated music lover. At Esterháza, his vast summer estate, Prince Miklós could boast a musical establishment second to none, the management of which made immense demands on its director. In addition to the symphonies, operas, marionette operettas, masses, chamber pieces, and dance music that Haydn was expected to compose for the prince's entertainment, he was required to rehearse and conduct performances of his own and others' works, coach singers, maintain the instrument collection and music library, perform as organist, violist, and violinist when needed, and settle disputes among the musicians in his charge. Although he frequently regretted the burdens of his job and the isolation of Esterháza, Haydn's position was enviable by 18^th-century standards. One remarkable aspect of his contract after 1779 was the freedom to sell his music to publishers and to accept commissions. As a result, much of Haydn's work in the 1780s reached beyond the guests at Esterháza to a far wider audience, and his fame spread accordingly.

After the death of Prince Miklós in 1790, his son, Prince Antál, greatly reduced the Esterházy musical establishment. Although Haydn retained his title of Kapellmeister, he was at last free to travel beyond the environs of Vienna. The enterprising British violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon lost no time in engaging the composer for his concert series in London. Haydn's two trips to England for these concerts, in 1791-92 and 1794-95, were the occasion of the huge success of his last symphonies. Known as the "Salomon" or "London" symphonies, they include several of his most popular works: "Surprise" (#94), "Military" (#100), "Clock" (#101), "Drum Roll" (#103), and "London" (#104).

In his late years in Vienna, Haydn turned to writing masses and composed his great oratorios, The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). From this period also comes his Emperor's Hymn (1797), which later became the Austrian national anthem. He died in Vienna, on May 31, 1809, a famous and wealthy man.

Haydn was prolific in nearly all genres, vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular. Many of his works were unknown beyond the walls of Esterháza, most notably the 125 trios and other assorted pieces featuring the baryton, a hybrid string instrument played by Prince Miklós. Most of Haydn's 19 operas and marionette operettas were written to accommodate the talents of the Esterháza company as well as the tastes of his prince. Haydn freely admitted the superiority of the operas of his young friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In other categories, however, his works circulated widely, and his influence was profound. The 107 symphonies and 68 string quartets that span his career are proof of his ever-fresh approach to thematic materials and form, as well as of his mastery of instrumentation. His 62 piano sonatas and 43 piano trios document a growth from the easy elegance suitable for the home music making of amateurs to the public virtuosity of his late works.

Haydn's productivity is matched by his inexhaustible originality. His manner of turning a simple tune or motive into unexpectedly complex developments was admired by his contemporaries as innovative. Dramatic surprise, often turned to humorous effect, is characteristic of his style, as is a fondness for folkloric melodies. A writer of Haydn's day described the special appeal of his music as "popular artistry", and indeed his balance of directness and bold experiment transformed instrumental expression in the 18^th century.