There is considerable information available on Haydn’s life and works, so it is not necessary to repeat much of what is written. Below are a few interesting facts concerning Haydn’s life and works. One excellent source is contained in Oxford Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com
By Thomas Hardy - Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=620261
By Bambizoe from Dresden, Germany - Joseph Haydn Straße Pirna, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85204397
Haydn’s life up to 1761
His birthplace, Rohrau, is situated on the border between Austria and Hungary.
Even though his first given name is Franz, this name Haydn never used.
Haydn was the second of twelve children.
His father was a master wheelwright and he was also the magistrate/mayor of the village in which the family lived.
The family was very musical and the three surviving sons all became professional musicians. Michael Haydn (1737 - 1806) was an organist and composer working as the Kapellmeister at Oradea and then later as the Concertmaster in Salzburg. Johann Evangalist Haydn (1743 - 1805) was a tenor in a church choir and later, a singer at the Esterhazy Court.
A cousin of Haydn’s father by marriage, who was a principal of a school in a nearby town, on hearing Haydn’s voice suggested that he live with his family so he could receive better musical training. This man, Johann Matthias Frankh was also the choir director of Hainburg Church.
At about the age of eight, Haydn was recruited as a choirboy (later on his brother Michael was recruited in about 1745 too) for St Stephen’s Church, Vienna. This choir is the forerunner of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. The choirboys received some musical training. He was dismissed from the choir once his voice broke after a stay of 10 years.
Whilst he was St Stephen’s School he was given very little to eat.
During the period 1750 - 61, Haydn spent his time performing and teaching in Vienna. It was a valuable time for Haydn, as he began to make contacts in the musical world in Vienna.
He was inspired by the sonatas of C. P. E. Bach.
It is thought that Haydn wanted to marry Therese Keller (born 1733) who was the sister of the woman that he married, Maria Anna Keller (baptised 1729). Therese became a nun.
He married Maria Anna Keller on 9th November 1760, although this date could be 26th October 1760. Maria was the daughter of a wigmaker who possibly could have helped Haydn financially or employed him as a teacher.
Esterházy Palace, Fertőd. By Jakub Hałun - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117764373
Esterhazy Court 1761 - 1790
The Esterhazys were one of the richest and most influential amongst the Hungarian nobility. They had long been patrons of the arts.
When Haydn became Kapellmeister in 1766, he became responsible for church music which was in addition to his other areas of composing, performing and teaching.
In 1781 Haydn started selling some of his music overseas.
In 1783 - 4 Haydn and Mozart met in Vienna.
HAYDN - in storm during his crossing the sea to London, England Painting by Edouard Hammon (1819 - 1888). This experience influenced Die Schopfung - The Creation. From Alamy.com
London 1791 - 5
When the impresario and violinist Johann Peter Salomon, who was originally from Bonn but living on London, heard that Haydn was available, he travelled to Vienna and ‘informed’ Haydn that he would now be going to London. This was on account of the death of Haydn’s patron Prince Nicolaus and from this time on Haydn received a pension from the Esterhazys.
Haydn received an honourary doctorate of music from Oxford University in early July 1791. This is recorded on his tomb in Eisenstadt.
On the 19th January 1794 Haydn departed for London a second time.
Haydn’s death
Haydn dies whilst the French were bombarding Vienna. Apparently Napoleon ordered that a guard of honour be stationed outside his house.
Haydn died on the 31st May 1809 and owing to the war, a simple burial was necessary.
Haydn’s remains are now interred in the Bergkirche at Eisenstadt which is near the Esterhazy Palace. Entry to the church is free however there is an entry fee for viewing Haydn’s tomb.
Haydn’s will
Haydn’s wife died on 20th March 1800, leaving most of her modest estate to Haydn. Much is written of how Haydn’s marriage was unhappy which is no doubt true, however it couldn’t have been so unhappy considering that his wife left most of her money to him.
Haydn drew up his will in May - June 1801, although in other sources it is stated that Haydn commenced writing his will in May 1801 and completed it on the 6th December 1801, which indicates that it was the date that it was signed and witnessed.
The largest bequests he made to his two brothers. Both of his brothers predeceased him and Haydn's will was modified taking these deaths into account. It was revised on the 7th February 1809.
In the period when Haydn was working as a performer and teacher in Vienna, a lacemaker Johann Wilhelm Buchholz loaned him 150 gulden, without interest, which at the time was close to a year’s salary for an ordinary musician at a minor court. Haydn remembered this kindness by leaving some money to Buchholz’s granddaughter.
The original will is in the Vienna State Archives.
Haydn’s head
It wasn’t until 1820 that Haydn’s patron Prince Esterhazy was ready to move Haydn’s remains to a more fitting grave for the composer.
It was found that Haydn’s head had been removed.
At the time of Haydn’s death there was a theory put forward by a Viennese physiologist Dr Franz Joseph Gall, that it was possible to determine an individual attribute by observing and/or feeling certain “bumps on the cranium”. These bumps, according to Gall, corresponded to the · advanced development of some of the twenty-seven individual organs he thought made up the human brain.
It is thought that Haydn’s head was removed to prove this theory. Apparently Haydn’s head displayed a fully formed “bump of music”.
It was stolen by Joseph Rosenbaum, an accountant and a former secretary of Prince Esterhazy and Johann Nepomuk Peter, a friend of Rosenbaum’s and also an amateur phrenologist. Peter was the Superintendent of the Royal and Imperial prisons of Vienna. It is thought that these two men would have bribed a gravedigger to enable Haydn’s head to be stolen.
Rosenbaum apparently kept Haydn’s skull for a number of years, where it was displayed in his home. On Rosenbaum’s death, the skull was given to Peter, whose widow on Peter’s death, passed it on to their physician Dr Karl Haller. The skull passed through a few more hands before being presented to the Viennese Society of Friends of Music, who displayed it for a number of years on a pedestal.
In 1820 Prince Esterhazy asked Rosenbaum to return Haydn’s skull which he was willing to pay for. Rosenbaum did not wish to return the skull so he purchased skull which, when authenticated, was found to that belonging to a young man. Rosenbaum apologised, and immediately bought the skull of a much older man. Once this skull was declared the genuine article, it was buried with Haydn’s body.
Obviously, at some stage the Esterhazy family discovered that the skull that had been buried with Haydn’s body was not genuine. In 1932 the Esterhazy family built a marble tomb for Haydn’s remains and they asked for his remains to be unified. The Society of Friends of Music in Vienna offered to sell the skull to the Esterhazy family however the family could not afford to pay for it. The negotiations lasted for a number of years and immediately after World War 2, Vienna was divided in the International Zone. In 1945, Austria was divided into four zones of occupation and where Eisenstadt was located, it fell under Soviet control. The Soviets controlled this part of Austria for ten years. After World War 2, the Society offered to give the skull to the family.
On 30th May 1954, the skull was removed from the Society of Friends and was transported by hearse through Rohrau, Haydn's’ birthplace to the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt where the skull was reunited with Haydn’s remains in a new copper coffin, the previous coffin having deteriorated. The second skull remains with Haydn’s remain, thus meaning that there are two skulls in the coffin, Haydn’s skull and a skull from an unknown person.
There is a photo of Austrian poet and sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi placing Haydn’s skull into the coffin.
On source stated that just before the local Soviet commander left, he decided to use his powers to ensure that Haydn’s skull was reunited with his body.
Haydn's sarcophagus in Bergkirche in Eisenstadt, Austria. By Ljuba brank - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27546129
Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 50
In June 1982, a woman living in Melbourne, Australia attended a festival that was running that was commemorating Haydn’s birth 250 years before. In a plastic shopping bag she had the original copy of Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 50 Nos 3 - 6 and she showed them to the conductor, · Christopher Hogwood.
She had inherited them from an ancestor, an English colonel who had purchased them at an 1851 auction prior to emigrating to New Zealand. She was unaware these scores were the only original versions of the quartets.
They were signed by Haydn in 1787. It was a 120 page leather bound manuscript.
The owner intended to have a limited edition copy available publicly.
At the time they were valued at $500,000Au.
References
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn
www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Haydn
www.classicfm.com/composer/haydn
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haydn%27s_head
www.interlude.hk/dont-lose-your-head-haydns-skull
www.classicfm.com/music-news/haydn-missing-head>true-crime-podcast/
www.tandfonline.com.doi/abs
www.csmonitor.com/1982/0820/082048/html