Michael Haydn's name and accomplishment stand today often in the shade of his older brother - Joseph Haydn. Yet, the story of his life offers much material that can be of interest, particularly since he was closely associated with his brother and the Mozart family throughout his career. Today it is little known that he actually held a post of Kapellmeister in Salzburg during the years Leopold Mozart was the assistant Kapellmeister there. Moreover, Michael Haydn was also in a position to endure the customary strictness of now "famous" Archbishop Colloredo which has become a known detail of young Mozart's biography.
Michael Haydn's schooling started at the footsteps of his older brother when he joined the St. Stephen's cappella in Vienna as a choir boy endowed with exceptional voice. There he got the first practical instruction in violin and organ. Later he befriended F. J. Aumann and also J. G. Albrechtsberger during the study at Vienna Jesuit Seminary. It is likely that he learned to play additional instruments (harp included) as was customary at that time. However, during his early career he was commonly known as a violin virtuoso.
His first official post he has received as a violinist at the court orchestra of Grosswardein (today Oradea in Romania) in 1757. Only three years later (1760) he became there the orchestra leader, at about the same time when Graf Adam Patacic became there a newly appointed bishop and the head of the court. Michael Haydn has remained there for two years until 1763 when the orchestra was temporary closed due to the two year long mourning period caused by the death of Bishop's mother.
This fact may be very interesting for the Viennese bass tradition since this same Kapellmeister position has later been filled by Dittersdorf (1765), who himself employed there Wenzel Pichl as a violinist and Friedrich Pischelberger on double bass. The musician roster of the pre-1765 orchestra that Michael Haydn lead is yet to be researched.
However, by 1763 M. Haydn was fortunate to procure a post as a "Musicorum concentuum magister" - a concert-master or a leader of instrumental music - at the court of Salzburg under the Prince-Archbishop Siegmund von Schrattenbach. In Salzburg, Michael Haydn will remain for the rest of his life and there he will also become closely acquainted with Mozart family.
It is little known today that during the time of his Salzburg years he was actually holding a higher position than Mozart's father Leopold, who was also employed as a violinist at the court orchestra. Moreover, Michael Haydn's duties as a composer have sometime even included a collaboration with young Mozart with whom he even shared the work on some liturgical choral works!
At the beginning of his Salzburg tenure, M. Haydn's was mostly active as a violinist and thus his best camber works come from this period, particularly since at 1766 he was even referred as "virtuos auf der violine". At that time he would compose works usually intended for a combination of string and wind instruments. This period will however end with the death of Archbishop Schrattenbach and the arrival of Hieronymmus Colloredo in 1772. The circumstances for the entire court and the Salzburg province will change dramatically under new bishop, who will impose new set of rules and different demands.
With the arrival of the new Bishop, Haydn has started to receive ever more commissions from the church, and these works will bring him a such a fame that today he will be known predominantly as a church composer. He himself has had to adjust his style several times, and these changes were often dictated from the bishop Colloredo, since as at that time the bishop himself was under pressure from emperor Joseph II to reform church service in accordance with congregational singing practice of protestant traditions. Thus, for a while M. Haydn's duties have encompassed arrangements of hymnals in German for the church use, and the composition of simple choral settings suitable for congregational singing. The customary insertions of the entire symphony movements within the mass service was forbidden - until the very public has shown an open dissent toward Colloredo's orders and the standard liturgical practice was in part allowed to return.
By 1782 M. Haydn has become the main organist in Salzburg and his affiliation with church circles has grown strong and mutually enjoyable. M. Haydn has actually lived in the apartment situated within the St. Peter Abbey of Salzburg. It is reported that he enjoyed the company of cloister monks and some of his works even show that directly, since we even have preserved an actual song he composed for the inauguration of St. Peter's cellar (MH 597). Judging by the reports of contemporaries and the drawing of him with F.J. Aumann in St. Florian's Abbey, he was a modest man who was happy to make the company in the monastic vine-cellars.
Through the time, the fame of M. Haydn has slowly grown, so that by the end of his life he was even invited to write masses for the Viennese court in which the very empress have singed the solo part. In 1802 he was actually offered the position at Esterházy court that his brother Joseph has held for so long, but he declined. His age and familiarity with Salzburg circles was probably a factor in this decision. Furthermore, he was already an established composer with prominent students such as C.M. von Weber, A. Diabelli and S. Neukomm and it appears that he was more inclined to wait for the better times at home in Slazburg than to face the challenges of the new position.
By some coincidence, a strange faith has fallen on him to die while writing a requiem, as was the case with Mozart. Reports state that citizens of Salzburg have honored their bellowed kapellmeister with large funeral procession. Later on, M. Haydn's choral compositions have become a model to all young composers of the 19th century, and his vocal works have even been admired and emulated by Schubert himself. Some of the contemporaries have even considered M. Haydn's choral works superior to those of his brother.
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For the Viennese bass tradition M. Haydn is important mostly thorough his chamber works, which due to the wide dissemination of his manuscripts can now be found in many locations, including almost all the monasteries of the upper Austria.
The complete register of his chamber works that use the Viennese bass will take some time to research and assemble, but the works section presented here already lists all the unambiguous works with bass parts labeled "violone" - respectively "contrabasso" - or that employ such an ensemble where the wind complement would necessitate the stronger 16 foot instrument accompaniment.
Many of his chamber works are also housed in the Esterházy collection in Budapest since by some coincidence a part of his inheritance was moved to the Esterházy estate. The reminder of his notturni and cassationi will have to be researched on the individual basis in order for the proper bass instrument to be determined. Further research shall also cover the period bass players that have played in Salzburg and surrounding monasteries. Also, a separate topic of interest should be the use of bass in M. Haydn's symphonic and church works.
Gewöhnliche Signaturen des Generalbasses (ca. 1782) MH 317
Michael Haydn's Partitur-Fundament, ed. Martin Bishofreiter, Slazburg: -, 1833. MH -
• Period Bibliographic Sources:
Eitner, Robert, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis zur mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Haertel, 1900-04. v. 5, 72-76. PDF text
Fétis, Francois - Joseph. Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique. Edition: 2. éd. entièrement refondue et augmentée de plus de moitié. Paris: 1873-75. p. 270-71.
Gerber, Ernst Ludwig. Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler (1790-1792). Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1790. c. 613.
Gerber, Ernst Ludwig. Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler (1812-1814). Leipzig: Kühnel, A. 1800-1814. c. 531- .
Dwight C. Blazin. Michael Haydn and "the Haydn tradition" : a study of attribution, chronology, and source transmission. Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, 2004.
Charles H. Sherman, T. Donley Thomas. Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), a chronological thematic catalogue of his works. Stuyvesant, NY : Pendragon Press, 1993.
Perger, Lothar Herbert. "Thematisches Verzeichnis der Instrumentalwerke von Michael Hayden": p. xv-xxix. in Instrumentalwerke, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, Jahrg. XIV/2, Bd. 29. Graz : Akademische Druk- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1959. (Reprint of 1907 ed.)
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