|
Five centuries earlier, an artist calling himself ‘the Monk of Salzburg’, had been active in Salzburg. His writings were somewhat unsuited to a devout way of life – “… what joy I felt. A maiden fair delighted me in bed. That really did me good …”
If the latest research is proved correct, then the Monk of Salzburg and his archbishop, Pilgrim, were one the same person. When Pilgrim reigned in the fourteenth century, three hundred years had already passed since the building of Hohensalzburg Fortress was begun. And the Franciscan Church looked back over five centuries of history – as did St. Peter’s too. In its right-hand side-aisle, near the tomb of St. Rupert, Salzburg’s patron saint, St. Peter’s – the monastery church of a foundation with an unbroken history dating from the seventh-century and, therefore, unique in the German-speaking world – boasts two memorials.
The one in memory of Baroness von Sonnenburg, née Mozart – Nannerl, the sister of a genius. The other honours the brother of another genius, Michael Haydn, Joseph Haydn’s younger brother.
On August 10th, 1806 Johann Michael Haydn died of tuberculosis. He was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, and like his brother, Joseph, he was a chorister with the cathedra music at St. Stephan’s in Vienna. In 1763, at the age of twenty-six, he became conductor to the Salzburg prince-archbishop, succeeding Leopold Mozart, who had given up the post to travel. Frmlo 17631766 the complete Mozart family journeyed from Vienna to London, from success to success.
And Michael Haydn remained in Salzburg. In later years he accepted the post of organist and concert-master at the Benedictine Monastery of St. Peter’s, refusing flattering offers from the Grand-duke of Tuscany and Prince Esterházy and preferring to spend the remainder of his life in his adoptive city, Salzburg.
Not only does the memorial remind us of the younger Haydn – St. Peter’s Monastery also honours the memory of its one-time organist with a memorial of its own.
|
