Music from Austria

Camden Choir

Michael Haydn was the younger brother of Joseph Haydn. Starting his career as a choirboy in Vienna, he began composing at the age of 12. He later became Concertmaster in Salzburg, where he remained for 44 years. Joseph regarded his brother’s music highly – indeed he was reported as saying that Michael’s religious works were superior to his own.

This Requiem (the Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo, or more generally Missa pro Defunctis) was composed following the death of the Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach in Salzburg in December 1771. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knew Michael Haydn well and played in the orchestra at the Requiem's first performance. You will notice that he later ‘borrowed’ themes from it for his own, far more famous Requiem.