Michael Haydn

Johann Michael Haydn (1737–1806) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn. Michael Haydn was born in 1737 in the Austrian village of Rohrau, near the Hungarian border. Michael went to Vienna at the age of eight, his early professional career path being 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. About 1753, he left the choir school because of the breaking of his voice. In 1760 Michael was appointed Kapellmeister at Großwardein (today Oradea) and later, in 1762, was appointed concertmaster at Salzburg, where he remained for 44 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. 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. He died in Salzburg at the age of 68. Haydn's sacred choral works are generally regarded as his most important; his musical taste and skill showed themselves best in his church compositions and were already in his lifetime old-fashioned. Some of these works include 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 a diploma at Stockholm); his magnificent last St. Francis Mass in D minor; the motet Lauda Sion which he wished to have sung at his funeral; and a set of graduals, forty-two of which are reprinted in Anton Diabelli's Ecclesiasticon. He wrote several settings of the mass ordinary in German by Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner, named Deutsches Hochamt. Haydn was also a prolific composer of secular music, including 41 symphonies and wind partitas, and multiple concertos and chamber music including a string quintet in C major once thought to have been by his brother Joseph.