Count Morzin

Count Karl Joseph of Morzin (1717–1783) was a Bohemian aristocrat from the Morzin family (originally from northeastern Italian region of Friuli), remembered today as the first person to employ the composer Joseph Haydn as his Kapellmeister, or music director. The first few of Haydn's many symphonies were written for the Count. Life Different authorities give a different interpretation to the phrase "Count Morzin" (the sole words by which early Haydn biographies identified the man); the phrase is ambiguous because the title of count was hereditary, so that there was a whole line of Counts Morzin. The New Grove (article by James Webster) asserts that the "Count Morzin" who played an important role in Haydn's life was Karl Joseph Franz Morzin (1717–1783), whereas a biography by the leading Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon asserts that it was Ferdinand Maximilan Franz Morzin' (1693–1763). The difference apparently involves the question of whether Haydn was hired by the reigning count (Ferdinand Maximilian) or his son (Karl Joseph). Patron of Joseph Haydn The date of Haydn's appointment is also uncertain; it was in 1757. The appointment ended a period of struggle and economic insecurity for the composer, during which time he had worked as a freelance, gradually increasing his reputation and his connections with the aristocracy. Haydn's biographer Georg August Griesinger (1810), who interviewed the composer in his old age, wrote: