Jakob Haibel (20 July 1762

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

– 24 March 1826

Đakovo Đakovo (; hu, Diakovár) is a town in the region of Slavonia, Croatia. Đakovo is the centre of the fertile and rich Đakovo region ( hr, Đakovština ). Etymology The etymology of the name is the gr, διάκος (diákos) in Slavic form đ ...

) was an Austrian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

tic

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

and

choirmaster A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

Biography

Around 1789, Haibel joined

Emanuel Schikaneder Emanuel Schikaneder (born Johann Joseph Schickeneder; 1 September 1751 – 21 September 1812) was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer, and composer. He wrote the libretto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera ''The Magic Flute'' and was t ...

's company of performers at the

Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden The Theater auf der Wieden, also called the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden or the Wiednertheater, was a theater located in the then-suburban Wieden district of Vienna in the late 18th century. It existed for only 14 years (1787–1801), but duri ...

. While there, he acted in plays and sang in operas and other musical productions. In the mid-1790s he started composing incidental music for company's plays and writing

singspiele A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like. ...

. His first score for the company was the

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

''Le nozze disturbate'', which premiered in 1795 to great success. The company performed the work 39 times that year alone.

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

based his 12 variations on a ''Menuett à la Vìganò'' WoO 68 (1795) on an air from the ballet. In 1796, his opera '' Der Tiroler Wastel'' premiered at the theater to rave reviews. The work was Haibel's greatest success and was given 66 times that year and 118 times in all at the Freihaus-Theater. The work was staged in a multitude of other theatres throughout the Austro-German part of Europe and no other original score by Haibel ever equalled its success. Haibel continued to compose music for the theater until the death of his first wife Katharina (ca. 1768 – Vienna, 14 February 1806). At the time, he was not to be found in Vienna, for in 1804 he had already left for Diakowar (

), Slavonia,Lorenz, Michael (2008) Neue Forschungsergegnisse zum Theater auf der Wieden und Emanuel Schikaneder ("New research results concerning the Theater auf der Wieden and Emanuel Schikaneder"), p. 13. ''Wiener Geschichtsblätter.'' 4, 2008. Available on line. where he spent the rest of his life as the cathedral choirmaster. Recent research has brought to light 16 Masses by Haibel written during this time, preserved in the Kuhač collection at the Nacionalna i Sveučilišna Knjižnica in Zagreb. Haibel became

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

's posthumous brother-in-law when he married

Sophie Weber Maria Sophie Weber (1763–1846) was a singer of the 18th and 19th centuries. She was the younger sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's wife, Constanze, and is remembered primarily for the testimony she left concerning the life and death of her brot ...

, Constanze's sister, on 7 January 1807. After Haibel's death in 1826, Sophie moved to Salzburg to live with her sister.

References

Sources

Peter Branscombe Peter John Branscombe (7 December 1929 in Sittingbourne, Kent – 31 December 2008 in St Andrews, Scotland) was an English academic in German studies, a musicologist, and a writer on Austrian cultural history. Career Branscombe attended Dulwich ...

. ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

(1992), and *Zdravko Blažeković and Ennio Stipčević. "Johann Petrus Jakob Haibel (1762-1826) and His Sixteen Newly Discovered Masses from Djakvo (Croatia)", in: ''Off-Mozart: Glazbena kultura i "mali majstori" srednje Europe, 1750–1820 / Musical Culture and the "Kleinmeister" of Central Europe, 1850–1826''. Muzikološki zbornici 3 (Zagreb: Hrvatsko muzikološko društvo, 1995), 67–75. *Zdravko Blažeković, "Due musicisti nella Pannonia del primo Ottocento: Ðuro Arnod e Petrus Jakob Haibel", ''Danubio: Una civiltà musicale. IV: Croazia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania'', ed. by Carlo de Incontrera and Alba Zanini (Monfalcone: Teatro Comunale di Monfalcone, 1994), 47–64.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haibel, Jakob Austrian opera composers Male opera composers 1762 births 1826 deaths Austrian classical composers Austrian male classical composers