Michael Haydn

Michael Haydn is understandably overshadowed by his famous older sibling, as Salieri and Leopold Mozart are by Wolfgang Amadeus. In all three cases, these Chandos recordings go a long way towards restoring the balance. With just a handful of recordings of his music, the disc or download of Michael Haydn’s music becomes mandatory for a real appreciation of Mozart’s relation to his contemporaries, especially as one of Michael Haydn’s symphonies was long attributed to Mozart as his No.37 – he actually wrote only the slow introduction.

One of Michael Haydn's symphonies was taken for Mozart for a long time, and a good deal of their music is linked by its Salzburg roots. The sacred music on this disc, however, either postdates or predates Mozart and sounds very little like him. Included are four short masses for the Lenten season (all but one lacking Glorias, like some other masses of the period) and a charming Graduale for Palm Sunday. All but the concluding Missa Sanctae Crucis were written in the 1790s, after an ecclesiastical reform mandated simple, syllabic settings of liturgical texts, and the Missa Sanctae Crucis is a simple, youthful work. The music is accompanied only by a small continuo group.

Michael Haydn’s colourful and inventive music is uplifting and expressive in equal measure, but his music has been eclipsed by that of his elder brother Joseph, and by Mozart. Sacred music is central to Michael Haydn’s oeuvre and was considered by some contemporary critics as superior to Joseph’s. Encompassing a broad range of textures and styles, parts of the Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini demonstrate Haydn’s music at its most exhilarating and energetic, and his supreme gift for empfindsames (‘sensitive’) lyrical writing is also to be heard in the Vespers.

The “Mozart Matinees” were originally founded by Bernhard Paumgartner to introduce audiences to the genial composer’s little-known works. The Mozart Matinees of the 2004 summer festival – in addition to Mozart – were dedicated to the younger brother of Joseph Haydn: Johann Michael Haydn. Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C Minor was heard for the first time in December 1771; both father and son Mozart participated in the performance. Mozart later quoted a motive from this Requiem in his Maurerische Trauermusik and quoted the older man as well in his own requiem.

Wie spannend und aktuell auch die Beschäftigung mit über 200 Jahre alter Musik sein kann, zeigt unsere Edition aller Sinfonien von Michael Haydn sehr deutlich. Nun ist es mal wieder so weit: vier wundervolle Sinfonien sind produziert. Die Nummern 22, 23, 33 und 1C (Perger 1) stammen aus zwei Schaffensperioden Michael Haydns, die durch etwa 20 Jahre voneinander getrennt sind. Sie geben einen faszinierenden Einblick – sowohl in Haydns kompositorische Entwicklung als auch in die Vielfalt, die das Experimentierfeld Sinfonie jener Jahre bot. Die Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss unter Johannes Goritzki ist hörbar zum Michael-Haydn-Spezialisten geworden.

“A history of the Requiem” takes the music-lover on a journey through the very varied history of the requiem. Presenting one work per century seemed to be just right for illustrating the evolution of this, one of the most significant musical forms in the history of music. The first part of the series, devoted to Ockeghem and Lassus, was awarded a ‘5’ by the prestigious magazine Goldberg, and here now is the second part, presenting the requiems of André Campra and Michael Haydn, recorded on period instruments. A worthy successor to Lully and an admitted model for Rameau, Campra gives us with his Requiem, an ideal gateway for entering into a musical world of unquestioned emotional depth. Michael Haydn, the brother of Joseph, is one of the most remarkable composers of sacred music from the classical period.

The oratorio "Der Kampf der Buße und Bekehrung" (the struggle for penance and conversion) is among Johann Michael Haydn's lesser-known works. The Purcell Choir together with the Orfeo Orchestra, under the direction of György Vashegyi now present a recording of the second and only surviving part of this three-part oratorio. It is impressive, especially for its unusual scoring: All of the the five solo roles are allotted to sopranos. The artistic mixture of majestic passages, surprising turns, Baroque rhetorical figures and virtuoso arias makes clear why later composers (e.g., Mozart, Schubert or Bruckner) repeatedly took Johann Michael Haydn's music as their model.