Johann Michael Haydn (1737 – 1806) was an Austrian
composer of the Classical period, the younger brother
of Franz Joseph Haydn. He was born 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 du...(+)
Johann Michael Haydn (1737 – 1806) was an Austrian
composer of the Classical period, the younger brother
of Franz Joseph Haydn. He was born 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 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. 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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
Haydn was a prolific composer of secular music,
including forty symphonies and wind partitas, and
multiple concertos and chamber music including a string
quintet in C major was once thought to have been by his
brother Joseph. There was another case of posthumous
mistaken identity involving Michael Haydn: for many
years, the G major symphony now known to be Michael
Haydn's Symphony No. 25 was thought to be Mozart's
Symphony No. 37 and assigned as K. 444. The confusion
arose because an autograph was discovered with the
opening movement of the symphony in Mozart's hand and
the rest in another's hand. It is now known that Mozart
composed the slow introduction to the first movement
but the rest of the work is by Michael. As a result,
this work, which had been quite widely played when
thought to be a Mozart symphony, has been performed
considerably less often since this discovery in 1907.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Haydn).
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB),
Trumpets, Percussion, Violins & Continuo, I created
this Interpretation of the "Tristis est anima mea" (Sad
is my Soul MH 276) for Winds (Flute, Oboe, English Horn
& Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
