Matthias Haydn

Matthias Haydn (31 January 1699, Hainburg, Lower Austria – 12 September 1763) was the father of two famous composers, Joseph and Michael Haydn. He worked as a wheelwright in the Austrian village of Rohrau, where he also served as Marktrichter, an office akin to village mayor.

Life

Matthias (or Mathias) was born in Hainburg, a small town not far from Rohrau, to Thomas Haydn, also a wheelwright. He served an apprenticeship as a wheelwright and then in 1717 left Hainburg on the traditional travels of the journeyman. This period of his life lasted ten years, and took him among other places to Frankfurt am Main. He returned once to Hainburg (1722), a fact known because he applied there for a copy of his birth certificate.

On his final return in 1727 he became a master wheelwright and joined the guild of wheelwrights in Hainburg. However, he settled in nearby Rohrau, where he built a house for himself. The following year he married Maria Koller, aged 21, who had worked as an "under-cook" in the palace of Count Harrach, the aristocratic patron of Rohrau. The couple had twelve children, of whom six died in infancy. The eldest, a daughter named Franziska, was born in September 1730; she lived until 1781. Joseph was second, born either 30 March or 1 April 1732[4] and Michael was sixth, born 14 September 1737. A third son, Johann Evangelist, was born 23 December 1743.

Maria died 22 February 1754, aged 47. The following year Mathias remarried, to "his servant girl of nineteen", whose maiden name was Maria Anna Seeder. The second marriage produced five children, none of whom survived to adulthood.

Mathias lived on to 1763. This was long enough to see both of his composer sons reach professional success: Michael was a Kapellmeister at Grosswardein, and Joseph had become Vice-Kapellmeister (in fact, Kapellmeister in all but name) for the fabulously wealthy Esterházy family in Eisenstadt. Haydn biographer Georg August Griesinger wrote (1810):

   Haydn's father thus had the pleasure of seeing his son in the uniform of [the Esterházy] family, blue, trimmed with gold, and of hearing from the Prince many eulogies of the talent of his son.

Griesinger goes on to relate how Mathias died:

  A short time after this visit, a wood pile fell on Meister Mathias while he was at work. He suffered broken ribs and died soon hereafter.