1737–1806 · Classical
Johann Michael Haydn (1737–1806) was an Austrian composer and organist, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn. He spent most of his life working in Salzburg, alongside Mozart, and taught Weber and Diabelli. His sacred works are regarded as his most important; the site offers his choral piece "Lyons".
In September 1737 Michael Haydn was born in Rohrau, a village close to the Hungarian border that now belongs to the Austrian state of Lower Austria. His father, Mathias Haydn, worked as a wheelwright and also held the office of Marktrichter, something like a village mayor. His mother, Maria, née Koller, had previously been a cook at the palace of Count Harrach, the leading aristocrat of Rohrau.
Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician: in his years as a journeyman he had taught himself to play the harp. He also saw to it that his children learned singing. Michael's older brother was the composer Joseph Haydn. Michael himself is also known as the "Salzburg Haydn". His brothers included Johann Evangelist.
At the age of eight Michael went to Vienna. His brother Joseph paved his way into the profession: Joseph's skilful singing had won him a place as a boy soprano in the choir of St Stephen's Cathedral, directed by Georg Reutter. Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann also sang in that choir; they were composers with whom Haydn later traded manuscripts.
By the age of twelve Michael was earning extra money at the cathedral as a substitute organist. By report, he played preludes and fantasies of his own composition.
The early nineteenth-century author Albert Christoph Dies, drawing on Joseph's reminiscences late in life, relates that Reutter was so taken with Joseph's talent that he promised the boys' father to look after all his sons. The father, by this account, felt relieved and agreed; some five years later he dedicated Michael to music, and later still Johann. Both were taken into the choir, and to Joseph's unending joy the brothers were handed over to him for training. According to the same source, Michael was the brighter pupil, and when Joseph's voice began to break it was Michael's singing that was admired more.
When his voice broke, Michael left the choir school. He then took the post of Kapellmeister in Oradea, a city now in Romania and formerly known as Großwardein. He served at the court of the bishop.
In the early 1760s Michael arrived in Salzburg, at the archbishop's chapel. There he was concertmaster and court organist, in which post he stood in for Leopold Mozart. He remained in Salzburg for 44 years, writing more than 360 works for the church and for instruments.
Haydn's colleague in Salzburg was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He knew Haydn from their time together in Salzburg and thought very highly of his work.
On 17 August 1768 Michael married the singer Maria Magdalena Lipp (1745–1827). Their only child, a daughter named Aloisia Josepha, came into the world on 31 January 1770 and passed away on 27 January 1771, not quite a year old. As early as 1767 Maria Magdalena had premiered the part of Mercy (Barmherzigkeit) in Mozart's earliest staged piece, "Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots"; in 1775 she sang Tamiri in his brief pastoral opera "Il re pastore".
His skill as a performer brought Haydn the post of organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity in 1777. From 1804 he was a member of the Swedish Academy of Music. In Stockholm he traded his Missa Hispanica for a diploma.
Michael remained close to Joseph all his life. Joseph thought highly of his brother's music and felt that Michael's religious works were better than his own. The reason may have been their devotional intimacy, whereas Joseph's own symphonic style was monumental and more secular.
In 1802 Michael was offered well-paid and honourable posts by the Esterházys and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He sent a letter to his brother Joseph, then in Vienna, asking if he ought to take either one. Michael finally chose to stay on in Salzburg.
The daughter of Michael and Maria Magdalena was given the name Aloisia Josepha for a reason other than her uncle: Josepha Daubrawa von Daubrawaick took the place of Countess Firmian as godmother at the christening, and the girl was named after her.
Haydn later turned to teaching. His pupils include Carl Maria von Weber, Anton Diabelli and J. Wölfl; Sigismund von Neukomm is named as another. He taught Weber and Diabelli in Salzburg. Haydn himself had studied with Georg Reutter the Younger. Forty-two of his graduals were reprinted in Anton Diabelli's "Ecclesiasticon".
Michael Haydn died on 10 August 1806 in Salzburg. He was buried in the old St Peter's cemetery, where the grave of Mozart's sister Nannerl is also found. He had wished his motet "Lauda Sion" to be sung at his funeral.
A memorial plaque to him hangs in Salzburg Cathedral. Haydn is also pictured on an Austrian postage stamp of 1987.
The most outstanding works of Michael Haydn are generally held to be his sacred compositions. In them he skilfully combined the traditions of the strict style with the achievements of the Viennese Classical school. Sacred music is regarded as his main contribution, although church works were already seen as old-fashioned in his lifetime. Among them are the Requiem in C minor written for Archbishop Sigismund, the Missa Hispanica, the last St Francis Mass in D minor and the motet "Lauda Sion". He also wrote several settings of the mass in German to texts by Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner, known as the Deutsches Hochamt.
The C minor Requiem, dated 1771, left its mark on Mozart while he was composing his own Requiem. Other Haydn works also shaped Mozart's music: the Te Deum was a close model for Mozart's K. 141, and the finale of Symphony No. 23 influenced the closing movement of the G major Quartet, K. 387.
Michael Haydn also wrote a great deal of secular music: symphonies and wind partitas, concertos and chamber works. Among his notable symphonies are Nos. 1, 34 and 36. His pieces for amateur music-making, vocal quartets for male voices among them, came about once he turned to German texts.
The musicologist Karl Geiringer argued that later generations had undervalued Michael Haydn. In his view the church music, the male-voice choruses and numerous instrumental pieces were of solid quality and ought to be performed again.
Michael Haydn neither compiled a catalogue of his works nor oversaw one, but he nearly always noted the completion date on his manuscripts, which makes dating his music simpler; guesswork was needed only where no autographs survive. The first catalogue was prepared in 1808 by Nikolaus Lang for his biographical sketch. In 1907 Lothar Perger described the orchestral works (hence the numbers prefixed with P), and in 1915 Anton Maria Klafsky turned to his sacred vocal music. In 1982 Charles Sherman published a chronological catalogue of the symphonies, and in 1991, together with T. Donley Thomas, a catalogue of the complete works. Dwight Blazin later added corrections.
Choral works are regarded as the most important part of his legacy. Our site offers the choral piece "Lyons (hymntune)" for mixed choir (SATB), marked at the level "Начальный+" (beginner plus).