Michael Haydn (1737-1806)
 

Gary Smith

                    In 1821 a memorial monument to a favorite hometown composer was consecrated amid the baroque splendor of the Monastery Church of St. Peter in Salzburg. It was however NOT for Wolfgang Amade’ Mozart; as such a monument was not to be erected in Salzburg for another twenty years. Instead, the inscription on this monument (for which Franz Xaver Gruber, the composer of Silent Night, was among the benefactors) reads:

Michaeli HAYDN
Nato Die 14. Sept.1737
Vita Functo Die 10. Aug. 1806

The composer's head, as it turns out, is contained in the urn upon the monument. Considering his friendship with Mozart, it somehow seems only natural that what we may have left of either of them is only their heads. And if one remembers that Joseph Haydn literally lost his as well after he was buried, these three composers seem to have been linked by more than just a great friendship!

Michael Haydn was buried at a place of honor in the so-called Communal Grave in the neighboring cemetery after a long funeral procession through the town. His grave is moreover only a few yards from the 'Peterskeller' (which still exists today) in which Michael Haydn had started to cultivate male-voice quartet singing even before the foundation of the German choral societies of the 19th Century. Mozart's Requiem K.626 was performed at the funeral ceremony in the University Church in his honor. A well received honor, with a bit of unintended irony, as Haydn had as well died with an unfinished composition on the table.

But something sure appears to be wrong here. Why was Haydn then held in higher esteem than Mozart in Salzburg? And, further, why Michael Haydn, rather than his much more famous elder brother Joseph?

The answer to both questions is simple: at that time in Salzburg Michael Haydn was much better thought of than Mozart, for he had enjoyed a long and successful career in the town which Mozart had left at a relatively early age. Mozart had as well made many disparaging remarks about the town and it inhabitants -for which the townspeople were rather reluctant to forgive him. Until the 1800’s Michael Haydn, who was rated highly by the Prince-Archbishop, was also regarded as a greater composer than his brother, who 'only' worked at some 'minor palace' far away: To some in Salzburg, Joseph had not yet started to build up his world fame, or more likely, his works had not penetrated into the performance venues there. Michael was not only famous in the city where he worked, however: after a visit to Vienna in 1801, one of his friends reported that people had called out in the street: 'Look! there's Haydn from Salzburg!'

Michael Haydn was the younger brother of Joseph Haydn (b. 1732), born some five and a half years later, in 1737 in the same district of Rohrau in Lower Austria not far from the Hungarian border. Michael, like Joseph, was a pupil and chorister of the cathedral conductor Georg Reutter the younger at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he learned music theory from the famous Gradus ad parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux. By his twelfth birthday, he was earning extra money as a substitute organist there and was beginning to compose preludes and fantasias. Immediately after this (1753-54) he completed his training at the Vienna Jesuit Seminar, and his first full (now lost) composition, a mass, dates from this period.

We know that Michael Haydn enjoyed a good reputation as a composer in Vienna around 1760. Then, together with a Viennese colleague, he had already been employed as a musician for some years, probably since 1757, in Grossardein (nowadays Oradea, on Romania's border with Hungary). In 1760 he became conductor in the service of the bishop there, and in the then usual manner of the times he composed works with amazing assiduousness for everyday use. Among the pieces he wrote in the year of his appointment was his first symphony, in E flat major, P. 1 ('P' denotes the number in the catalogue of works by Lothar Perger from 1907. Many then unknown works have since come to light and therefore many of Michael Haydn's works lack a 'P' number). It would appear that he composed here 15 symphonies, 14 masses, some concerti, six divertimenti, and a few wind partitas and set some Latin texts to 4-part chorus with orchestra. These works traveled some, and led to a slow but increasing fame. In 1763 he left this position after spending some time with the bishop in Pressburg (Bratislava). His successor in Grosswardein was Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

With the death of J. E. Eberlin in Salzburg in 1762, the Archbishop there made overtures to Haydn in order to acquire him for the Court. On 14th August 1763 Haydn was appointed Court Musician and Musical Director by Archbishop Sigismund. Among his colleagues were G.F. Lolli, A.C. Adlgasser and one Leopold Mozart. Haydn’s compositions were already known in Salzburg and, at the age of only 26, he enjoyed favorable patronage, as is again shown by his eligibility to dine at the officer's table immediately upon his appointment, a privilege enjoyed neither by the then assistant conductor Leopold Mozart nor later by his son Wolfgang. This fact, and the realization that Haydn received the same pay as Leopold Mozart (300 gulden per year), helps explain why the latter was always seemingly jealous of Haydn. This did not, however, prevent him from discharging his purely compositional duties with great honor. In what reports we have, Michael Haydn comes across as a well-liked man, and a credit to the court in which he served. In fact, in 1767 Haydn, Adlgasser and Wolfgang collaborated on a dramatic work for the Benedictine University: Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots.

The relationship between the Mozarts and Michael Haydn was one of mutual respect and friendship, though as noted earlier, Leopold never seemed to forget that Haydn had come to Salzburg and immediately passed him by on the promotion ladder. One suspects that Leopold blamed the Archbishop and Court for this slight, not Haydn. As an example of the respect the families had for each other, we find that on one of the Italian trips Wolfgang enthusing to his sister over some Haydn minuets she sent to them in Naples. “I very much like the twelfth minuet of Haydn, which you sent me, and you have set the bass to it exceedingly well and without the slightest mistake.” (26 May 1770). Later, Wolfgang again writes; “I am amazed at how well you can compose. In a word, the song is beautiful. Try this more often. Send me soon the other six minuets by Haydn.” (7 July 1770)

When Haydn entered service, Leopold Mozart and his seven-year-old son had just left on a foreign tour which was to last several years. This explains why the number of Haydn’s works soon assumed strikingly large proportions. He had to handle tasks that would otherwise have been the duty of Leopold to compose. Haydn wrote a number of solo concertos, and both his Trumpet Concerto and a movement for alto trombone demonstrate the virtuosity of the Salzburg musicians of the period. Given the court musicians' duties at festive occasions, it is small wonder that he composed serenades, divertimentos, cassations, nocturnes and other multi-movement works. To these can be added string quartets, string quintets and sonatas, countless minuets and so on. It should be mentioned that, since the publication of the New Mozart Edition in 1961, two of the K.104 minuets and all six in K.105 have been identified as the work of Michael Haydn. One can perhaps see just why the Archbishop appears to have favored Haydn over Leopold Mozart: Haydn composed hundreds of works while in the employ of the Salzburg Court. Leopold, on the other hand, gave up composition in the late 1760’s to concentrate on developing the young Wolfgang’s blossoming talents. Could it also be as well that the sheer volume of work produced by Haydn was such to make Leopold realize that he could never keep up with him and have time for Wolfgang, and so he ceased composing altogether?

Haydn also found personal happiness in Salzburg. In 1768 he married the singer Maria Magdalena Lipp, daughter of the court organist Franz Ignaz Lipp from Laufen on the Bavarian bank of the River Salzach. Mozart was to write several soprano parts for her ('fur die Haydin', 'for the Haydness'), including Regina caeli. The marriage was childless but for a daughter, born in 1770, who died after barely one year. This apparently was very hard on Haydn, for after this time come the reports that would indicate a drinking problem developed. From a letter by Leopold Mozart to Wolfgang on 2 Oct 1777 we read: “I was at the Thursday service today…Haydn’s interlude was so good that the Archbishop honored him by saying at table ‘that he never would have thought that Haydn was capable of composing such music and that instead of beer, he ought always to drink burgundy.’” Later on in December, Leopold writes: “Who do you think has been made organist at Holy Trinity? Haydn! Everybody is laughing. He will be an expensive item, as after every Litany he swills a quart of wine and send Lipp (his assistant),,, to do the other services.” This state of affairs progressed to 29 July 1778, when Leopold again writes: “ In the afternoon Haydn played the organ during the Litany and the Te Deum, the Archbishop being present, and he played so abominably that we were all terrified and thought he was going the way of Adlgasser.” (Who suffered a stroke while playing the organ some years earlier). “But it was only a slight tipsiness, which made his head and hands refuse to agree.”

While Leopold might view with a tinge of jealousy Haydn’s success, Wolfgang seems to have always cared for Haydn as a friend and esteemed him as a composer. Certainly one good example of this is the famous story of Mozart “ghosting “ music for Haydn for the Salzburg Court. Mozart and Constanze had gone on that more or less disastrous trip to Salzburg so she could meet the family. While there, Wolfgang found that Haydn had been commissioned to write duets for violin and viola for the Court but was prevented by illness from composing them. In fact, he had been threatened with punishment if he didn’t get them done on time. (It may be that the Court had more than a suspicion that Haydn’s illness was drinking related, and so was reluctant to cut him any slack). Mozart, it was told, helped Haydn out by himself quickly writing these two duets - upon which, cooperatively, he did not write his own name.

Another, more involved example would be that of Mozart’s Symphony #37 K.444 which is really by Haydn, mostly. As with many composers of the time, Haydn often selected various movements from finished works and recycled them into newer compositions of different formats. With Symphony # 26 (Perger 26), he assembled the first two movements from music he had composed to honor the election of Nikolas Hofmann as abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Michaelbeuern, near Salzburg. The first movement was taken from the sinfonia of a cantata in honor of Hofmann; the second was from a vocal aria sung at the abbot’s confirmation. When Mozart and his wife were in Salzburg in 1783, it is very possible that they heard this new work by Haydn. In any case, Mozart obtained a copy of it. However, what has come down to us is not just a copy. Mozart added a slow, somewhat stark introduction to the opening Allegro, producing a marked contrast to Haydn’s somewhat boisterous beginning. Further, Mozart appears to have reduced the colla parte writing in the winds throughout the work, as well as eliminating the important bassoon solo that is the heart of the middle movement. The result is that nearly all recordings of this work are of Mozart’s version. It has only been in that last 20 years that Haydn’s version has come forth.

To what end, then, did Mozart require this symphony by Haydn? There are reports that Mozart had it performed at a concert in Linz on the way to Vienna from Salzburg (the same concert at which the « Linz » Symphony in C, K.425 was premiered at). As well, Mozart is supposed to have used it at his concerts in Vienna. However, there appears to be no parts made from this score in either city, and no first person evidence of any performances. Artaria in Vienna did release two symphonies, but P.26 was not either of them. Mozart wrote to his father later on how quickly he was able to obtain copies of Haydn’s recent symphonies, so there must have been a demand for these types of works from him. In fact, there are theories that Mozart was responsible in some manner for Artaria publishing these works, even darker theories that he acquired the symphonies and sold them to Artaria himself, cutting Haydn out of the money. There is no basis for these points and certainly Mozart’s regard for Haydn would be a strong factor against such actions.

In a final note, such rewriting did not go only one way. Haydn arranged the Romanze second movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto #3 K.447 for horn and string quartet. But, while he simplified a few areas, Haydn rewrote several sections and added to the horn’s line several additional bars of expanded material. One might note that K.447 dates from around the same time as K.444/P.26, leading one to wonder if perhaps Mozart swapped one of his newer works for one of Haydn’s. Of course, there’s no proof, but it does seem an engaging idea between friends.

Haydn's connection with Salzburg was to last until his death, a total of 43 years. As a court musician he had a wide variety of duties, which he would have had difficulty in finding elsewhere. Sacred and concert elements were integrated to the greatest extent in music, and the court orchestra played not only liturgical music in the town's churches but also musical entertainments, festive music and music for theatrical performances. Even then Salzburg was an international city, the court musicians coming not only from the local region and neighboring German states but also from distant countries: often Italians were employed, to the seeming displeasure of the Mozarts. In 1782 Haydn was appointed court and cathedral organist, 'in the same manner as the young Mozart was obliged to serve, under the condition that he be more diligent', as the Prince-Archbishop Hieronymous so revealingly wrote. He was also active. As a teacher, and for a time Carl Maria (von) Weber, Anton Reicha and Anton Diabelli were among his composition pupils.

Understandably, Haydn's catalogue of works includes many religious compositions. As far as we know today, he wrote a total of 833 works. Of these, 658 of them are vocal, and 404 of those are religious, including 36 masses and requiems. As well, he composed about 100 settings of the Mass proper in a simple homophonic style between late 1783 and 1791. In the context of a reform of church music in Salzburg, it fell to Haydn's lot to revise the collection of German hymns then in use. He was named in 1790 as editor of a second Salzburg edition of Johann Kohlbremnner’s German hymnal, originally published in 1777. The titles of other pieces reveal that he was no stranger to worldly pleasures either: one of his canons, for instance, is called Wer niche liebt Wein, Weiber und Gesang ('Who doesn't care for wine, women and song). This piece dates from around 1790 (significantly earlier than the waltz by Johann Strauss the younger, it should be noted).

Although there was no opera house as such in Salzburg, Michael Haydn composed a series of stage works -principally theatre music with operatic characters, which pale alongside Mozart's operatic genius. He also participated in a number of the typical Salzburg Lent oratorios in which different composers wrote the three sections. In the case of Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes ('Duty of the First Commandment'; 1767) one of the other composers was Mozart. His best-known works appear to have been composed between 1771 and 1777; these would be a Requiem from 1771, a Missa S Hieronymi from 1777 and two offertories (Tres sunt and Lauda Sion). It might be noted here that the staggered entries at the beginning of this 1771 Requiem may have impressed Mozart at the time, as his Requiem of 20 years later opens in similar fashion.

His symphonic output is sizeable, but it is nothing but coincidence that the total number is, like Mozart's, 41 (indeed, as Michael Haydn's output has yet to be fully researched, the real total is assumed to be about 45), especially when we remember that his brother Joseph composed more than twice as many. Michael Haydn wrote his last symphony (as far as we know) in 1789, roughly the time that Joseph Haydn and Mozart were starting the decisive development of the symphony into a large-scale form, a development taken further by Ludwig van Beethoven. The reason he wrote no symphonies in the last sixteen years of his life was, simply that his time was already overly occupied with sacred music. His symphonic output thus was allowed to dry up. The handling of the musical material is comparable with the middle periods of Joseph Haydn or Mozart, as is the three- or four-movement structure. The symphonies are characterized by the greatest craftsmanship and moreover benefit from a richness of invention and the disarming freshness of a natural musicianship, along with a superior ability to manage the individual instruments. It is understandable that even a master such as Mozart felt that he could learn from his friend Haydn.

In the end, Haydn died in Salzburg, having completed among other works a Te Deum in honor of the Empress Maria Theresia as well as a Mass in honor of the Emperor’s Nameday. He fell sick in late 1805, but expected to get better with the coming of spring. He didn’t, and while working on another religious work, worsened and died on 10 August 1806. Michael Haydn and Wolfgang Amade’ Mozart, entwined musically throughout their lives, saw one final strand woven at this time. For, the last work Haydn was unable to finish was a Requiem Mass.

Sources:

Letter of Mozart and His Family by Emily Anderson, 3 Vol. 1st Edition MacMillan and Co. London, 1938

Sadie, Stanley (Ed.) The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd Edition Groves Dictionaries, New York 2000

Liner Notes from :

BIS CD-481 Michael Haydn Symphonies : P.31, P.18, Eb, Bb
MCD 10026 Michael Haydn Symphonies P.19, P.23, P.26

Additional Music :

BIS CD-859 Sacred Choral Music (includes the Missa Sancti Hieronymi)
CPO 999-230 Divertimenti
Claves 50-8703 Romanze for Horn and String Quartet (K.447)
 

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