Michael Haydn

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For the American general, see Michael Hayden
Michael Haydn
Michael Haydn

Johann Michael Haydn (September 14, 1737 – August 10, 1806) was an Austrian composer, the younger brother of (Franz) Joseph Haydn.

Contents

[edit] Life

Johann Michael Haydn was born in 1737 in the Austrian village of Rohrau near the Hungarian border. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Haydn's mother, the former Maria Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Neither parent could read music. However, Matthias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp, and he also made sure that his children learned to sing; for details see Mathias Haydn.

Michael's early professional career path was paved by his older brother Joseph, whose skillful singing had landed him a position as a boy soprano in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna where he worked as a chorister, under the direction of Carl Georg Reutter. The early 19th century author Albert Christoph Dies, reporting from Joseph's late-life reminiscences, says the following:[1]

Reutter was so captivated by [Joseph]'s talents that he declared to the father that even if he had twelve sons, he would take care of them all. The father saw himself freed of a great burden by this offer, consented to it, and some five years after dedicated Joseph's brother Michael and still later Johann to the musical muse. Both were taken on as choirboys, and, to Joseph's unending joy, both brothers were turned over to him to be trained."

The same source indicates that Michael was a brighter student than Joseph, and that (particularly when Joseph had grown enough to have trouble keeping his soprano voice), it was Michael's singing that was the more admired.

Shortly after he left the choir-school, Michael was appointed Kapellmeister at Großwardein and later, in 1762, at Salzburg. The latter office he held for forty-three years, during which time he wrote over 360 compositions for the church and much instrumental music.

Haydn married the singer Maria Magdalena Lipp, who was disliked by the women in Mozart's family.[2] Leopold Mozart criticized Haydn's alcoholism.[3]

He was acquainted with Mozart, who had a high opinion of his work, and was the teacher of both Carl Maria von Weber[4] and Anton Diabelli.

Michael remained close to Joseph all of his life. Joseph highly regarded his brother and felt that Michael's religious works were superior to his own.[5] In 1802, when Michael was "offered lucrative and honourable positions" by "both Esterházy and the Grand Duke of Tuscany," he wrote to Joseph in Vienna asking for advice, though in the end he chose to stay in Salzburg.[6] It has been hypothesized that Michael and Maria Magdalena named their daughter Josepha in honor of Michael's brother.[7]

Michael Haydn died in Salzburg at the age of 68.

[edit] Works

Haydn's sacred choral works are generally regarded as being his most important, including the Requiem pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismundo (Requiem for the death of Archbishop Siegmund) in C minor, which greatly influenced the Requiem by Mozart, Missa Hispanica (which he exchanged for his diploma at Stockholm), a Mass in D minor, a Lauda Sion, and a set of graduals, forty-two of which are reprinted in Anton Diabelli's Ecclesiasticon. He was also a prolific composer of secular music, including forty symphonies and partitas, a number of concerti and chamber music including a string quintet in C major which was once thought to have been by his brother Joseph.

The confusion continues to this day: often the Classical Archives page for Joseph Haydn has some MIDI files of Michael Haydn compositions, which are eventually moved to the general H page.

There was another case of posthumous mistaken identity involving Michael Haydn: for many years, the piece which is now known as Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 25 was thought to be Mozart's Symphony No. 37 and assigned K. 444. The confusion arose because an autograph was discovered which had the opening movement of the symphony in Mozart's hand, and the rest in somebody else's. It is now thought that Mozart had composed a new slow introduction for reasons unknown, but the rest of the work is known to be by Michael Haydn. The piece, which had been quite widely performed as a Mozart symphony, has been performed considerably less often since this discovery in 1907.

Indeed, several of Michael Haydn's works influenced Mozart. To give just two examples: the Te Deum "which Wolfgang was later to follow very closely in K. 141"[8] and the finale of the Symphony No. 23 which influenced the finale of the G major Quartet, K. 387.

Michael Haydn never compiled a thematic catalog of his works, nor did he ever supervise the making of one. The earliest catalog was compiled in 1808 by Nikolaus Lang for 'Biographische Skizze'. In 1907 Lothar Perger compiled a catalogue of his orchestral works for 'Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich', which is much more reliable. And in 1915 Anton Maria Klafsky undertook a similar work regarding the sacred vocal music.

Some of Haydn's works are referred to by Perger numbers, from the thematic catalog of his works compiled by Lothar Perger in 1907.

St. Peter's Church in Salzburg and the entrance to the Michael Haydn Library
St. Peter's Church in Salzburg and the entrance to the Michael Haydn Library

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ 1810, 86
  2. ^ Max Kenyon, Mozart in Salzburg: A Study and Guide. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 142
  3. ^ Max Kenyon, Mozart in Salzburg: A Study and Guide. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 154. "Michael Haydn indeed, according to Leopold, was taking to drink. He was sometimes under its influence when at the organ during High Mass ..."
  4. ^ Max Kenyon, Mozart in Salzburg: A Study and Guide. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 197. "In January 1798, Michael Haydn, who had succeeded to one of Leopold Mozart's minor posts, that of teacher to the Cathedral choir boys, found among the new entry a likeable and promising lad of 11 named Carl Maria von Weber.
  5. ^ Rosen 1997, 366
  6. ^ H. C. Robbins Landon, The Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn. Fair Lawn, New Jersey: Essential Books (1959): 214, Draft of a letter to Haydn's brother, Johann Michael, in Salzburg. German. "Du" form. Vienna, 22nd January 1803.
  7. ^ Max Kenyon, Mozart in Salzburg: A Study and Guide. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 154. "Haydn's second child, so quickly baptized on the day she was born, was named Josepha : had Michael his great brother in mind ?"
  8. ^ Max Kenyon, Mozart in Salzburg: A Study and Guide. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 44

[edit] References

  • Charles H. Sherman and T. Donley Thomas, Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), a chronological thematic catalogue of his works. Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press (1993)
  • Dies, Albert Christoph (1810) Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn, Vienna. English translation by Vernon Gotwals, in Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits, Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press.
  • Rosen, Charles (1997) The Classical Style. New York: Norton.

[edit] External links