Johann Michael Haydn (German: [ˈhaɪdn̩]; 14 September 1737 – 10 August 1806) was an Austrian composer from the Classical period. He was the younger brother of Joseph Haydn.

Life

Michael Haydn was born in 1737 in the Austrian village of Rohrau, near the Hungarian border. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also held the position of "Marktrichter," which is similar to a village mayor. His mother, Maria Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the most important noble in Rohrau. Mathias enjoyed playing folk music and taught himself to play the harp. He also ensured that his children learned to sing.

At age eight, Michael moved to Vienna. His older brother, Joseph, helped him begin his career. Joseph had a strong singing voice and became a boy soprano in the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, directed by Georg Reutter. Other musicians in the choir included Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann, both composers who later exchanged musical works with Haydn. By age 12, Michael was earning extra money by substituting as an organist at the cathedral and reportedly performed his own compositions, including preludes and fantasies. A 19th-century writer named Albert Christoph Dies, based on Joseph’s later memories, wrote that Michael was a more talented student than Joseph. When Joseph’s voice changed and he could no longer sing as a soprano, Michael’s singing was more admired.

Around 1753, Michael left the choir school because his voice changed. In 1760, he was appointed Kapellmeister in Großwardein (now Oradea) and later became concertmaster in Salzburg in 1762. He stayed in Salzburg for 44 years, during which he composed over 360 pieces of music, including church and instrumental works. During his time in Salzburg, he met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who respected his music highly.

On August 17, 1768, Michael married singer Maria Magdalena Lipp (1745–1827). Their only child, a daughter named Aloisia Josepha, was born on January 31, 1770, but she died shortly before her first birthday on January 27, 1771. Although Lipp was not liked by some members of Mozart’s family, she performed a role in Mozart’s first musical play, Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (1767), and later played Tamiri in his opera Il re pastore (1775).

Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, criticized Haydn’s drinking habits. In Salzburg, Haydn taught young composers Carl Maria von Weber and Anton Diabelli.

Michael remained close to his brother Joseph throughout his life. Joseph admired his brother’s music and believed Michael’s religious compositions were more meaningful than his own. In 1802, when Michael received job offers from the Esterházy family and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he asked Joseph for advice but ultimately chose to stay in Salzburg. Michael and Maria Magdalena named their daughter Aloisia Josepha not after Joseph but after Josepha Daubrawa von Daubrawaick, who served as the child’s godmother.

Michael Haydn died in Salzburg at the age of 68.

Works

Music expert Karl Geiringer has stated that Michael Haydn has not received the recognition he deserves from future generations. He believes that Michael Haydn’s church music, his choral works for male voices, and many of his instrumental compositions are of high quality and should be performed again.

Michael Haydn did not create a list of his own works, nor did he oversee the creation of one. The first catalog of his works was made in 1808 by Nikolaus Lang for his "Biographical Sketch." In 1907, Lothar Perger created a catalog of Michael Haydn’s orchestral music, called the Perger-Verzeichnis, for a publication named "Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich." This catalog is more accurate than Lang’s and uses "P." numbers to identify many of Haydn’s instrumental works. In 1915, Anton Maria Klafsky made a similar catalog for Michael Haydn’s sacred vocal music. In 1982, Charles H. Sherman, who edited many of Haydn’s symphonies for Doblinger, published a timeline-based catalog of his symphonies that some recording companies use. In 1991, Sherman and T. Donley Thomas created a complete catalog of all of Michael Haydn’s works, using a single numbering system inspired by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel’s catalog of Mozart’s works and Otto Erich Deutsch’s catalog of Schubert’s works. Later, Dwight Blazin made additional updates to this catalog.

Cataloging Michael Haydn’s music is easier because he often wrote the completion date on his manuscripts. Guessing the date was only needed when original manuscripts no longer existed.

Michael Haydn’s sacred choral music is considered his most important work. His skill and musical style were best shown in his church compositions, which were already seen as old-fashioned during his lifetime. Some of these works include the Requiem for the death of Archbishop Siegmund in C minor, which greatly influenced Mozart’s Requiem; the Missa Hispanica, which he exchanged for a diploma in Stockholm; his final St. Francis Mass in D minor; the motet "Lauda Sion," which he wanted to be performed at his funeral; and a set of graduals, forty-two of which were reprinted in Anton Diabelli’s "Ecclesiasticon." He also wrote several German-language settings of the mass ordinary, composed by Franz Seraph von Kohlbrenner, called "Deutsches Hochamt."

Michael Haydn was also a composer of many secular works, including 41 symphonies and wind partitas, as well as multiple concertos and chamber music. One example is a string quintet in C major, once mistakenly believed to be by his brother Joseph. Another case of confusion involved a G major symphony now known as Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 25. For many years, this symphony was wrongly attributed to Mozart as Symphony No. 37 (K. 444). This mistake happened because an autograph was found with the opening movement written in Mozart’s hand and the rest in another person’s hand. It is now known that Mozart composed the slow introduction to the first movement, but the rest of the symphony was written by Michael Haydn.

Several of Michael Haydn’s works influenced Mozart. Examples include the "Te Deum," which Mozart later closely followed in his work K. 141; the finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 23, which inspired the finale of Mozart’s G major Quartet, K. 387; and the (fugal) transition and (non-fugal) closing theme of the second subject in the finales of both Haydn’s Symphony No. 28 (1784) and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter) (1788), both in C major.

List of works

• 1.1 Symphonies (43 symphonies and single parts of symphonies)
• 1.2 Concertos (12 concertos and 1 single part)
• 1.3 Serenades (21 serenades, cassations, notturni, and divertimenti)
• 1.4 Incidental music (1)
• 1.5 Ballets (3)
• 1.6 Dances (15 collections of Menuetti, 3 of Menuettini, 1 English Dances, 1 German Dances)
• 1.7 Marches (15 marches and fragments of marches)
• 1.8 Quintets (6)
• 1.9 Quartets (19; the authenticity of the quartets numbered MH 308–313 is not certain)
• 1.10 Trio Sonatas (10)
• 1.11 Duo Sonatas (4)
• 1.12 Solo Sonatas (2)
• 1.13 Keyboard (19 compositions)
• 1.14 Unknown instrumentation (1)

• 2.1 Antiphons (47)
• 2.2 Cantatas (5)
• 2.3 Canticles (65)
• 2.4 Graduals (130)
• 2.5 Hymns (16)
• 2.6 Masses (47), including Missa Sancti Francisci Seraphici and Missa tempore Quadragesimae
• 2.7 Motets (7)
• 2.8 Offertories (65)
• 2.9 Oratorios (7)
• 2.10 Psalm settings (19)
• 2.11 Requiem (2, 1 completed only to the Kyrie, completed in 1839 by Paul Gunther Kronecker OSB, who lived from 1803 to 1847)
• 2.12 Other (42)

• 3.1 Arias (8)
• 3.2 Canons (65)
• 3.3 Cantatas (14)
• 3.4 Part-songs (97)
• 3.5 Operas (1)
• 3.6 Serenatas (1)
• 3.7 Singspiele (11)
• 3.8 Songs (46)

Recordings

• Michael Haydn: Symphonies numbered 1–12, 15, 16, 18, 25–28 (1998, CPO) – Slovak Chamber Orchestra conducted by Bohdan Warchal
• Michael Haydn: Die Wahrheit der Natur (2018, CPO) – Salzburger Hofmusik conducted by Wolfgang Brunner
• Michael Haydn: Endimione (2021, CPO) – Salzburger Hofmusik conducted by Wolfgang Brunner
• Michael Haydn: Kaiser Constantin I (2022, Accent ACC26504) – Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi
• Michael Haydn: Missa Sancti Aloysii (2022, Brilliant Classics) – Genova Vocal Ensemble and Accademia Vocaledi Genova conducted by Roberta Paraninfo