Michael Haydn

Composer, born in Rohrau, NE Austria, the brother of Franz Joseph Haydn. He was a cathedral chorister with Joseph in Vienna, and ultimately became musical director and concert master to the Archbishop in Salzburg, where he remained until his death. Some of his compositions are of considerable merit and charm; and several of his church pieces and instrumental works are still performed. Carl Weber was among his pupils.

Johann Michael Haydn (September 14, 1737 – August 10, 1806) was an Austrian composer, the younger brother of (Franz) Joseph Haydn.

Michael Haydn was born in 1737 in the Austrian village of Rohrau near the Hungarian border. Haydn's mother, the former Maria Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau.

Michael Haydn, like his brother Joseph, was a chorister at St Stephen's in Vienna.

Haydn's sacred choral works are generally regarded as being his most important, including the Requiem pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismundo (Requiem for the death of Archbishop Siegmund) in C minor, which greatly influenced the Requiem by Mozart, Missa Hispanica (which he exchanged for his diploma at Stockholm), a Mass in D minor, a Lauda Sion, and a set of graduals, forty-two of which are reprinted in Anton Diabelli's Ecclesiasticon. He was also a prolific composer of secular music, including forty symphonies, a number of concerti and chamber music including a string quintet in C major which was once thought to have been by his brother Joseph.

Michael Haydn was the victim of another case of posthumous mistaken identity: for many years, the piece which is now known as Michael Haydn's Symphony No. It is now thought that Mozart had composed a new slow opening movement for reasons unknown, but the rest of the work is known to be by Michael Haydn.

Some of Haydn's works are referred to by Perger numbers, from the thematic catalog of his works compiled by Lothar Perger in 1907. Donley Thomas, Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), a chronological thematic catalogue of his works.