Where did Haydn become a choirboy at age 8?

• A. St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice
• B. St. Peter's Basilica in Rome
• C. Westminster Abbey
• D. St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna

Answer: (D)

Cathedral choir training was a common pathway into professional music in Haydn’s time, providing formal singing education, sight-singing, and early exposure to a disciplined musical life in a major city. Haydn joined the boys’ choir at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna when he was about eight, where he developed his abilities on voice, keyboard, and violin and learned to read music within a thriving musical environment. This early, structured training in Vienna laid the groundwork for his later career as a renowned composer and court musician. The other locations are well-known sites tied to different contexts or composers, whereas the Vienna cathedral is where Haydn’s formal training began.