Maria Anna von Genzinger


Maria Anna Sabina Genzinger, called Marianne, was a Viennese amateur musician, the mother of six children, and a friend of the composer Joseph Haydn. Her correspondence with Haydn preserves a personal view of the composer not available from any other biographical source. Her daughter Josepa was a singer who gave the first performance of Haydn's Ariadne Auf Naxos.

Background

Marianne Genzinger was the daughter of Joseph von Kayser, who served as court councillor for Prince Batthyany. Her mother, born Maria Anna von Hackher zu Hart, was of an "old Austrian aristocratic family."
On 29 June 1773 she married the physician Peter Leopold Genzinger. Robbins Landon describes Genzinger as "a popular 'Ladies' Doctor'". He was raised to the nobility by Emperor Francis II on 18 June 1793, thus henceforth "von Genzinger". In 1792, he was made Rector of the Vienna Faculty of Medicine. For many years, Genzinger served as Physician in Ordinary to Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, who from 1766 to his death in 1790 was Joseph Haydn's patron and employer. It is plausible that Haydn met Marianne through this connection.
Marianne bore six children, four boys and two girls. Like many cultivated women of the time, she was an amateur musician and could play the piano. She continued her piano studies in adulthood.
The friendship with Haydn began in 1789. At this time, the composer was 57 years old, and was nearing the end of his nearly 30 years of full-time service with Esterhazy princes, the latter half spent mostly at the remote palace of Esterháza in Hungary. Although he was the most celebrated of all composers at the time, he still was bound by loyalty and economic considerations to his Prince. Haydn frequently sought to visit Vienna, which however lay a considerable distance from Esterháza.

The origin of the friendship

Although it is not known how Haydn and Marianne met, their friendship originated in correspondence: having arranged the Andante movement of one of Haydn's symphonies for piano, she sent a copy of her work to the composer, asking him to critique it. Here is the text of her letter, dated 10 June 1789:
Haydn responded with words of praise:
A social invitation to the Genzingers' home soon followed. Haydn biographer Karl Geiringer describes Haydn's visits to the Genzingers as follows:

Haydn's loneliness

The backdrop to this description is that Haydn's own marriage had been unhappy almost from the very start, and had produced no children. Haydn was also conducting a long term love affair with the singer Luigia Polzelli, but this may have been fading, in light of the fact that two years later Haydn did not bring Luigia with him on his first visit to London. Haydn may also have been deprived of ordinary male friendship, given that his contract required him to act as a "house officer" and remain socially aloof from the musicians under his direction.
That Haydn did indeed feel lonely during his final years at Eszterháza is suggested by a letter to Marianne, dated February 9, 1790:
Other letters suggest that Haydn, whose persona is often assumed to be uniformly and stereotypically jolly experienced depression at times. A letter of May 1790 reads:

The first London journey

Haydn may be assumed to have visited the Genzingers more often after the death of Prince Nikolaus, when he was dismissed by the new prince from his duties, was given a pension, and settled in Vienna. However, the stay in Vienna was only for a brief time; on 15 December 1790, Haydn left Vienna on the first of his two journeys to London, where he enjoyed great success both musically and financially. Much of the information we have about Haydn's London visits comes from letters he wrote to Marianne while there. The following is an extract from a letter written on 20 December 1791.
It was confirmed to Haydn only shortly thereafter, and much to his sorrow, that Mozart really had died.

Death and mourning

The last letter from Haydn to Marianne is dated 13 November 1792, thus following his return to Vienna on July 24.
By "my opera" Haydn meant his L'anima del filosofo, completed the previous year; the aria in question is a lament by the main character Orpheus.
The letter gives no hint at all that Marianne was ill, but in fact she died only two months later, on 26 January 1793. The cause of death was given as "lung ulcers." She was 38 years old. Haydn's feelings at the time are not preserved, though the musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon suggests that his F Minor Variations for piano, which stand out in Haydn's oeuvre for their tone of impassioned anguish, may have been written as a tacit commemoration of Marianne.
Karl Geiringer writes "With Marianne's death, something never to be recaptured went out of Haydn's life. A certain sarcasm in his nature began to show, an asperity of which the diary of his second trip to London offers many instances."

A love affair?

Geiringer and other biographers have addressed the question of whether Haydn was in love with Marianne. The most likely answer seems to be that he was, but was very aware of how catastrophic the consequences would be if they pursued a romantic connection, and exercised restraint. Moreover, the various veiled utterances found in Haydn's letters are not matched in Marianne's, who "certainly showed no more than friendliness."
Haydn biographer Rosemary Hughes writes:

Genzinger as dedicatee

Haydn wrote his piano sonata in E flat, Hob. XVI/49, for Marianne. The work is considered one of Haydn's finest sonatas. Concerning the slow movement, Haydn wrote to Marianne, "I recommend it especially to your attention for it contains many things which I shall analyze for your grace when the time comes; it is rather difficult but full of feeling.". She wrote that "I like the Sonata very much, but there is one thing which I wish could be changed, and that is the passage in the second part of the Adagio, where the hands cross over; I am not used to this and thus found it hard to do, and so please let me know how this could be altered."
The Abschiedslied Hob. XXVIa:F1 is also dedicated to her