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Biography
Like his brother Joseph, who was five years older, Johann Michael Haydn (1737–1806)
was born in the lower Austrian town of Rohrau, and like his brother, because
of his exceptionally beautiful soprano voice, he was accepted into the boys
choir of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna at the age of eight. He was surrounded
by a rich tradition of baroque church music and he studied with Georg Reutter,
Jr., the music director at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, who with the then most famous
book on counterpoint, Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), taught
him the fundamentals of composition. This solid contrapuntal foundation played
an essential role in the development of Johann Michael Haydn’s style of composing
music for the church.
In 1760 Haydn was appointed to the position of music director to the Bishop
of Großwardein (today in Romania). In addition to sacred works for use in the
church, he composed his first symphonies here; they certainly deserve comparison
with the early instrumental works of his brother. Haydn did not remain in the
provinces very long, but rather made the important move in 1763 to the renowned
Court of the Prince Bishop of Salzburg, where for forty years he was in the
service of the Prince Bishop Sigismund Graf Schrattenbach and his successor,
Hieronymus Graf Colloredo. As “Hofmusicus und Concertmeister” in Salzburg he
was a colleague of the assistant music director Leopold Mozart and his son,
Wolfgang Amadeus.
In addition to his service in the orchestra of the Prince Bishop, he was given
the post of organist at the Trinity Church, beginning in 1777. Following W.
A. Mozart’s dispute with the Salzburg Court, Johann Michael Haydn became his
successor as first Court and Cathedral organist, a position whose duties also
included teaching at the Salzburg Kapellhaus (Court music school). Haydn was
a much sought after teacher, among whose students were Anton Diabelli, Sigismund
Neukomm and Carl Maria von Weber.
In the final two decades of his life, Johann Michael Haydn dedicated himself
almost exclusively to the composition of sacred and secular vocal music. With
his German songs for equal voices, which he wrote to be sung at social gatherings
of friends, he created the new genre of the male quartet.
Two visits to his brother in 1798 and 1801 took him to Vienna. He was offered
the lucrative position of assistant music director at the Court of Prince Esterházy,
which he refused. In 1804 the “Salzburg Haydn” was honored by acceptance into
the “Royal Swedish Music Academy.” Johann Michael Haydn died in August 1804
and was buried in the cemetery of St. Peter’s. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary
of his death in 1821 a memorial in his honor was unveiled in the collegiate
Church of St. Peter. Following a visit to the monument in August 1825, Franz
Schubert reported movingly: “I thought to myself, it blows upon me, your calm,
clear spirit, good Haydn, and even if I cannot be so calm and clear, then surely
no one on earth worships you as profoundly as I do. (A heavy tear fell from
my eyes …).”
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