|
The Esterházy princes and counts were among the great territorial magnates of Hungary, during the time it was part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire.
History
The family rose to prominence under Count Nikolaus Esterházy (1583-1645) and his son, Prince Paul Esterházy (1635-1713). The success of the family arose from the steady accumulation of land (ultimately they became among the largest landowners in the Empire), and loyalty both to the Catholic Church and to the Habsburg Emperor.
The latter factor was perhaps the most important. A consistent theme of Hungarian history was an ardent and sometimes violent wish to become free of Austrian rule, a wish that was finally fulfilled at end of the First World War. But the Esterházy princes were consistently loyal to the Habsburg monarchy, and on several occasions rendered vital services to it in times of crisis. These included the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and the outright occupation of the city by Napoleon in 1809.
Homes
The ancestral seat of the Esterházys was in Eisenstadt, where they occupied a palace built in the 14th century and rebuilt 1663-72. Eisenstadt now lies in the eastern portion of Austria, but at the time of the Esterházy princes (and until 1920), it was within the legal borders of Hungary. Its Hungarian name is Kismarton.
The Esterházys maintained a number of other residences, and those Esterházy princes who preferred the stylish life of the capital spent most of their time in Vienna. In the 1770s, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, who disliked Vienna, had a magnificent new palace constructed at Eszterháza, in rural Hungary on the site of a former hunting lodge. This is the most admired of the Esterházy homes, often called the "Hungarian Versailles," and is a prominent tourist attraction today.
Haydn
The Esterházy family is perhaps best known for its association with the celebrated composer Joseph Haydn, who served as their Kapellmeister. Haydn was hired by Prince Paul Anton in 1761, and worked for most of his years of service (1762-1790) under his successor Nikolaus. During the following reign, that of Prince Anton (1790-1794), the Esterházy family mostly did without the services of musicians, and Haydn, retained on an honorary appointment, spent most of this time in trips to England. Finally, during the reign of Nikolaus II, Haydn performed largely ceremonial duties, principally consisting of composing an annual Mass for the name day of the Prince's wife (and Haydn's friend), Princess Maria Josepha Hermenegild (1768-1845). The aging Haydn continued to perform this annual service, with increasing difficulty, until his health failed entirely in 1802.
Nomenclature
The Esterházy family was generally bilingual, in Hungarian (as a result of their ethnicity) and German (as they were aristocrats of the Austrian Empire). Indeed, some family members went by both German and (rather distinct) Hungarian names. Thus, Paul Anton (German) was the same person as Pál Antal (Hungarian), and Nikolaus Josef (German) was the same person as Miklós Jozsef. In discussions written in English, the Esterházy princes are occasionally given English versions of their names, as in "Nicholas".
The family name is also rendered variously: Eszterházy (Hungarian spelling), Esterházy (German), and Esterhazy (typographic convenience). The full family name was Esterházy von (of) Galántha, after one of the early family possessions.
The main Esterhazy line
Hungarian names are given in brackets.
Count Nikolaus [Miklós] (1583-1645)
Born in Galantha. Raised as a Protestant, he later converted to Catholicism. Created Count by the Emperor in 1626, he achieved great wealth in part by marrying (twice) into money.
Nikolaus was in 1625 elected Palatine, that is, ruler of Hungary under vassalship to the Emperor.
Prince Paul [Pál] (1635-1713)
Third son of Nicholas, born in Eisenstadt. Elected Palatine in 1681 and created Prince in 1687 by the Emperor. Paul was a poet, a harpsichordist, and a composer; a number of his cantatas survive. He also wrote a number of religious works.
Under Paul the palace in Eisenstadt was rebuilt.
Paul's troops were among the coalition that raised the siege of Vienna in 1683. He also played an important role in suppressing the autonomy of the existing Hungarian nobility.
Prince Michael [Mihály](1671-1721)
son of Paul
Prince Joseph [Joszef Simon Antal] (1688-1721)
Half-brother of Michael, he reigned for only 11 weeks. His wife Maria Octavia (ca. 1686-1762) served as regent during Paul Anton's minority, and introduced the German language to the court.
Prince Paul Anton [Pál Antal] (1711-1762)
Son of Joseph, a soldier who rose to the rank of Field Marshall.
Paul Anton was the Esterhazy prince who engaged Haydn. He could play the violin, the flute, and the lute.
Prince Nikolaus "the Magnificent" [Miklós Jozsef] (1714-1790)
Son of Joseph, in his youth a decorated soldier. He was the primary patron of Haydn and builder of Esterháza (see above).
Nikolaus was "magnificent" not just in his palaces and patronage of music, but also in his choice of apparel, which included a famous jacket studded with diamonds.
Nikolaus played the cello, the viola da gamba, and (his favorite instrument), the difficult and now-obscure baryton. For the latter instrument, Haydn wrote a great deal of chamber music, which is seldom played today.
In his later life Nikolaus played much less and became something of a couch potato, listening to ceaseless performances of operas produced by Haydn and his troupe both for the main theater and for the marionette theater at Esterhaza. Haydn wrote several of these operas himself, and these are likewise among his least remembered works.
There is no sign that Nikolaus had any real interest in Haydn's string quartets, now considered among his greatest works.
However, this is one area of Haydn's oeuvre where Nikolaus can be uncontroversially considered a great patron of musical arts, as he was the primary sponsor of Haydn's series of symphonies. Of the 106 symphonies, those coming after the few written for Count Morzin (Haydn's first employer) and for Paul Anton, and before the "Paris" symphonies of the late 1780s, were written specifically at Nikolaus's instigation. They were premiered by a small orchestra that Nikolaus provided to Haydn, giving the composer ample rehearsal time, salary levels to attract top personnel, and full artistic control. Few composers can ever have claimed to have possessed such an incubator for their creations, and the symphonies that Haydn wrote for this ensemble can fairly be regarded as Nikolaus's (inadvertent) gift to posterity.
Nikolaus was disconsolate when his wife died in 1790, and Haydn found himself hard pressed trying to keep his employer's spirits up with music during the few months that the prince survived his wife. The composer was touchingly loyal to his prince, but probably felt a certain sense of relief when the Prince finally died.
Prince Anton [Antal] (1738-1794)
Son of Nikolaus I, disbanded the Esterhazy musical establishment for the duration of his reign.
Prince Nikolaus II [Miklós Ferdinand] (1765-1833)
Son of Anton. In his youth he served as an officer in the Guards and took the Grand Tour. Later on he served the Empire as a diplomat.
A dramatic moment in Nikolaus's career occurred in (1809) when Napoleon made him an offer to become King of an independent Hungary. Nicholas helped save the Empire by rejecting Napoleon's invitation. Actually, he went further than this, and raised a regiment of volunteers to help defend the Empire, an action he had previously taken in 1797.
During his Grand Tour experience Nikolaus developed a taste for the visual arts, and as Prince Nikolaus accumulated a great collection of drawings and paintings. His profligacy as a collector cause financial difficulties for the next two generations of the family.
Haydn biographer Karl Geiringer describes Nicolaus II thus: "He was as complete an autocrat as his grandfather had been, but lacked the latter's charm, kindliness, and genuine understanding of music ... contemporaries described the prince's nature as 'worthy of an Asiatic despot'".
Nikolaus II commissioned the six late masses of Haydn noted above, as well as the Mass in C of Ludwig van Beethoven. At the first performance of the Beethoven Mass, the Prince criticized the work, and Beethoven left his house in a rage.
The Prince could play the clarinet, or so it would appear from one of the portraits of him.
The splendor of Nikolaus II's reign was greatly diminished by a financial crisis that shook Austria in 1811.
Prince Paul Anton III [Pál Antal] (1786-1866)
Served Austria in a series diplomatic posts, and in 1848 was briefly Foreign Minister.
The family encountered financial trouble during his reign, and (according to the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittannica), "the last years of his life were spent in comparative poverty and isolation, as even the Esterhazy-Forchtenstein estates were unequal to the burden of supporting his fabulous extravagance and had to be placed in the hands of curators."
Prince [Miklós Pál] (1817-1894)
Prince [Pál Antal Miklós] (1843-1898)
Prince [Miklós Pál] (1869-1920)
Prince [Pál Maria Alois Antal Miklós Victor] (1901-1989)
Prince [Anton Rudolf Marie Georg Christoph Hubertus Johannes Karl Aglaë] (born 1936)
The heir to the line is Paul-Anton Nikolaus Maximilian, born in Munich in 1986.
The title of Prince has no legal standing today, as noble titles were abolished in Hungary in 1945.
Other members of the Esterházy family
A minor member of the Esterhazy family was Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, notorious for his role in the Dreyfus affair.
Another was Joseph Eszterházy (nephew to Palatine Paul), the ban of Croatia between 1733 and 1741. Francis Eszterházy also held that title between 1783 and 1785, but he was opposed by Francis Szechenyi.
The renowned contemporary Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy is a descendent of the historical Esterházys.
See also
Book
- The quotation from Karl Geiringer above is from his Haydn: A Creative Life in Music (Norton, New York, 1946).
External links
| 
