HobXXVIa/41. Engraved, no PN. 4 pp. A very fine early copy of this beautiful song, composed by Haydn during one of his visits to London towards the end of his life. Like most of his English songs - including the somewhat earlier "Canzonettas" - it is written to words by his friend, Anne Hunter. This little work is a "masterpiece of imagination. Even its key, F minor, is significant, and like all Haydn's English songs, it opens with a long passage for the piano in which (as throughout the four verses) the accompaniment paints the scene and carries on the action with an initiative worthy of Schubert...The song is usually supposed to belong to Haydn's second English sojourn and is even referred to as being one of the Canzonets. From the nature of the music itself, I should be disposed to place its composition three or four years later, during the period when Haydn was at work on his finest quartet - those of Op. 76 and Op. 77." (Marion Scott, "Some English Affinities and Associations of Haydn's Songs." Music and Letters, Vol XXV No. 1)