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 six children who lived to adulthood were as follows (baptismal names not used in later life are parenthesized).
- (Anna Maria) Franziska Haydn (bap. 19 September 1730 - 29 July 1781)
- (Franz) Joseph Haydn (born either 30 March or 1 April 1732, died 31 May 1809)
- (Johann) Michael Haydn (bap. 14 September 1737 - 19 August 1806)
- Anna Maria Haydn (bap. 6 March 1739 - 27 August 1802)
- Anna Katherina Haydn (bap. 6 March 1739 - ?before 1801)
- Johann Evangelist Haydn (bap. 23 December 1743 - 10 May 1805)
Maria Koller Haydn 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 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.
Read more about this topic: Mathias Haydn
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