Haydneum Opening Festival

It is a rare moment when two or more siblings within the same family write their names into the history of music. Besides the Bach boys, the Haydn brothers are the other most obvious example: the older, the immortal Viennese classic composer Joseph (1732–1809) who lived the majority of several decades spent in work as musician in residence with the Esterházy family in Eisenstadt, took Paris and London by storm in his later years. His younger brother, Michael (1737–1806), after a short period in Oradea, basically spent his entire life in Salzburg as conductor of the cathedral, and he nurtured close ties with the Mozart family. Wolfgang Amadeus was not only in awe of Joseph (they even played quartets together and he dedicated his six string quartets to him) but he learnt a lot from Michael as well, especially in the area of church music. Michael also wrote many concertos, two of which are performed at this recital, while the symphony is representative of one of Haydn’s most important genres. Andrea Bertalan (flute) and Zsolt Kalló (violin) are leading soloists of authentic early music performance style in Hungary, Capella Savaria have played a leading role in Hungarian music life since the 1980s, the golden age of historical performance practice in the country.