Michael Haydn Johann Michael Haydn

Johann Michael Haydn (German: [ˈhaɪdən] ); 14 September 1737 – 10 August 1806) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period, the younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Life

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 Maria, née Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Mathias 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.

Michael went to Vienna at the age of eight, his early professional career path was paved by his older brother Joseph, whose skillful singing had landed him a position as a boy soprano in the St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna choir under the direction of Georg Reutter, as were Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann, both composers with whom Haydn later traded manuscripts. By Michael's 12th birthday he was earning extra money as a substitute organist at the cathedral and had, reportedly, performed preludes and fantasies of his own composition. The early 19th-century author Albert Christoph Dies, based on Joseph's late-life reminiscences, wrote:

Reutter was so captivated by [Joseph]'s talents that he declared to his 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 brothers 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.

About 1753, he left the choir school because of the break of his voice. In 1760 Michael was appointed Kapellmeister at Großwardein (today Oradea) and later, in 1762, at Salzburg, where he remained for 43 years, during which he wrote over 360 compositions comprising both church and instrumental music. From their mutual sojourn in Salzburg, Haydn was acquainted with Mozart, who held his work in high esteem.

On 17 August 1768 he married singer Maria Magdalena Lipp (1745–1827); their only child, a daughter (Aloisia Josepha, born 31 January 1770) died just short of her first birthday, on 27 January 1771. Although Lipp was disliked by the women in Mozart's family for some reason, she still created the role of Barmherzigkeit ([Divine] Mercy) in Mozart's first musical play, Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots ("The Obligation of the First Commandment"), 1767, and later the role of Tamiri in his short pastoral opera Il re pastore of 1775.

Leopold Mozart criticized Haydn's heavy drinking.

In Salzburg Haydn taught young Carl Maria von Weber and Anton Diabelli.

Michael remained close to Joseph all of his life. Joseph regarded his brother's music highly, to the point of feeling Michael's religious works were superior to his own (possibly for their devotional intimacy, as opposed to Joseph's monumental and majestic more secularized symphonic style). 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 on whether or not to accept any of them, but in the end chose to stay in Salzburg. Michael and Maria Magdalena Haydn named their daughter Aloisia Josepha (who was always called Aloisia) not in honor of Michael's brother, but after Josepha Daubrawa von Daubrawaick, who substituted as godmother at the baptism for Countess de Firmian.

He died in Salzburg at the age of 68.

List of works

Instrumental music

• 1.1 Symphonies (43 symphonies + single movements of symphonies)
• 1.2 Concertos (12 concertos + 1 single movement)
• 1.3 Serenades (21 serenades, cassations, notturni and divertimenti)
• 1.4 Incidental music (1)
• 1.5 Ballets (3)
• 1.6 Dances (15 collections of Menuetti, 3 of Menuettini, 1 English Dances, 1 German Dances)
• 1.7 Marches (15 marches and fragments of marches)
• 1.8 Quintets (6)
• 1.9 Quartets (19)
• 1.10 Trio Sonatas (10)
• 1.11 Duo Sonatas (4)
• 1.12 Solo Sonatas (2)
• 1.13 Keyboard (19 compositions)
• 1.14 Unknown instrumentation (1)

Sacred vocal music

• 2.1 Antiphons (47)
• 2.2 Cantatas (5)
• 2.3 Canticles (65)
• 2.4 Graduals (130)
• 2.5 Hymns (16)
• 2.6 Masses (47) including Missa Sancti Francisci Seraphici and Missa tempore Quadragesimae
• 2.7 Motets (7)
• 2.8 Offertories (65)
• 2.9 Oratorios (7)
• 2.10 Psalm settings (19)
• 2.11 Requiem (2, 1 completed only to the Kyrie, completed in 1839 by Paul Gunther Kronecker OSB (1803–1847) )
• 2.12 Other (42)

Secular vocal music

• 3.1 Arias (8)
• 3.2 Canons (65)
• 3.3 Cantatas (14)
• 3.4 Part-songs (97)
• 3.5 Operas (1)
• 3.6 Serenatas (1)
• 3.7 Singspiele (11)
• 3.8 Songs (46)