He and his wife, the former Maria Anna Keller, did not get along, and they produced no children. In 1760, with the security of a Kapellmeister position, Haydn married. The Eszterházy princes (first Paul Anton, then most importantly Nikolaus I) were musical connoisseurs who appreciated his work and gave him the conditions needed for his artistic development, including daily access to his own small orchestra. Despite the backbreaking workload, Haydn considered himself fortunate to have his job.
Haydn had a huge range of responsibilities, including composition, running the orchestra, playing chamber music for and with his patrons, and eventually the mounting of operatic productions.
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN INSTRUMENTS PLAYED FULL
When the old Kapellmeister, Gregor Werner, finally died in 1766, Haydn was elevated to full Kapellmeister.Īs a liveried servant of the Eszterházys, Haydn followed them as they moved among their three main residences: the family seat in Eisenstadt, their winter palace in Vienna, and Eszterháza, a grand new palace built in rural Hungary in the 1760s. Count Morzin soon suffered financial reverses that forced him to dismiss his musical establishment, but Haydn was quickly offered a similar job (1761) as assistant Kapellmeister to the Eszterházy family, one of the wealthiest and most important in the Austrian Empire. In this capacity, he directed the count's small orchestra, and for this ensemble wrote his first symphonies. In 1759, or 1757 according to the New Grove Encyclopedia, Haydn received his first important position, that of Kapellmeister (music director) for Count Karl von Morzin.
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN INSTRUMENTS PLAYED PROFESSIONAL
Haydn was able to learn a great deal by osmosis simply by serving as a professional musician there. Stephen's was at the time one of the leading musical centers in Europe, where new music by leading composers was constantly being performed. Reutter also did little to further his choristers' musical education. The young Haydn greatly looked forward to performances before aristocratic audiences, where the singers sometimes had the opportunity to satisfy their hunger by devouring the refreshments. Like Franck before him, Reutter didn't always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed. Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and soon moved off to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister, the last four in the company of his younger brother Michael. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, who was touring the provinces looking for talented choirboys.
There is reason to think that Haydn's singing impressed those who heard him, because two years later (1740), he was brought to the attention of Georg von Reutter, the director of music in St. The people of Hainburg were soon hearing him sing soprano parts in the church choir. However, he did begin his musical training there, and soon was able to play both harpsichord and violin. Life in the Franck household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing. Haydn thus went off with Franck to Hainburg (ten miles away) and never again lived with his parents. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Franck, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Franck in his home to train as a musician. Haydn's parents were perceptive enough to notice that their little son had musical talent, and they also knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any serious musical training. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their neighbors. However, Matthias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp.
Haydn himself was nicknamed Sepperl as a child.
Haydn's mother, the former Maria Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. His father was Matthias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as 'Marktrichter', an office somewhat akin to village mayor. Haydn was born in 1732 in the Austrian village of Rohrau near the border with Hungary.
0 kommentar(er)
