Michael Haydn

Johann Michael Haydn (; 14 September 1737 – 10 August 1806) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period and 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 served as “Marktrichter”, an office akin to village mayor. Haydn’s mother Maria, Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp, and he also made sure that his children learned to sing. Michael went to Vienna at the age of eight, his early professional career path being paved by his older brother Joseph, whose skillful singing had landed him a position as a boy soprano in the St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna choir under the direction of Georg Reutter, as were Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann, both composers with whom Haydn later traded manuscripts. By Michael’s 12th birthday he was earning extra money as a substitute organist at the cathedral and had, reportedly, performed preludes an