Joseph Eybler Sheet Music, Program Notes and recordings

Joseph Eybler: A Detailed Biography

The Emperor's Kapellmeister: A Life in the Shadow of Genius

In the chaotic days following the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in December 1791, his distraught widow, Constanze, faced a desperate situation. Her husband had died leaving a major commission—a Requiem Mass—unfinished, with half the payment already spent. To secure the final payment, she needed a complete score. She turned first to a man her husband had deeply admired, a trusted friend and one of the most skilled composers in Vienna: Joseph Eybler. Placing the sacred, incomplete manuscript into his hands, she pleaded with him to finish it. Eybler, out of profound respect for his departed friend, agreed to try. He took the score home and began the painstaking work of orchestrating the movements his master had left in sketch form. But the task proved too much. Staring at the sublime, heart-wrenching notes of the Lacrimosa—the last music Mozart ever wrote—Eybler found himself paralyzed. The emotional weight and the sheer impossibility of matching Mozart’s genius were overwhelming. He returned the score to Constanze, his work incomplete. This single, dramatic episode has come to define Eybler's legacy, forever linking his name to the most mythologized work in music history.

Early Life and a Haydn Connection

Joseph Eybler was born into a musical family in Schwechat, a town just outside Vienna. His father was a teacher and choir director who gave him his first music lessons. Recognizing his son’s immense talent, he sent the young Joseph to Vienna to continue his studies. There, he became a student of the celebrated composer Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, who would also later teach Ludwig van Beethoven. A pivotal moment in his youth came through a family connection. Eybler was a distant cousin of the great Joseph Haydn, who took the young composer under his wing. When a fire destroyed the Eybler family home, leaving them destitute, it was Haydn who stepped in, providing financial support and a personal loan so that Joseph could continue his studies. More than just a benefactor, Haydn became a lifelong friend and mentor, offering guidance and championing Eybler's career whenever he could. This early endorsement from the most famous composer in Europe was an invaluable asset.

A Friendship with Mozart

Upon establishing himself in Vienna, Eybler entered the vibrant musical circle of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The two became close friends, and Mozart developed a deep respect for Eybler’s musical abilities. He saw in Eybler not just a talented composer but a musician with a keen understanding of drama and counterpoint. Mozart famously gave him a glowing letter of recommendation, stating that Eybler was a master of his craft, well-grounded in composition, and particularly skilled in the style of opera. He concluded by saying that the only other person he could say as much for was Joseph Haydn. This was extraordinarily high praise from a composer not known for distributing compliments lightly. This friendship and mutual respect explains why Constanze saw Eybler as the natural and most qualified person to complete the Requiem.

The Requiem Commission: An Impossible Task

When Eybler received the Requiem manuscript, he set to work on the movements of the Sequence, from the Dies Irae through the Lacrimosa. Mozart had written out the complete vocal parts and the bass line but had left most of the orchestration indicated only by sketches or brief notes. Eybler began the process of filling in the string and wind parts, a task that required not just technical skill but a deep empathy for Mozart's musical language. He completed the orchestration for several sections, and his work is generally considered to be stylistically closer to Mozart’s own than the version later produced by Franz Xaver Süssmayr. However, he ultimately abandoned the project. The exact reasons remain a subject of speculation. Some scholars believe he was simply overcome by grief and his profound reverence for Mozart. Others suggest that he found certain musical problems in the manuscript, particularly in the later sections, to be unsolvable. Whatever the reason, his decision to stop, while leaving Constanze in a difficult position, can be seen as an act of artistic integrity. He recognized the line between completing a master’s work and presuming to become the master himself.

A Career at Court

Despite being overshadowed in history by his more famous friends, Eybler forged a highly successful and prestigious career in his own right. He was a respected teacher and an accomplished performer on the viola and organ. His compositional career steadily gained momentum, and he secured a series of increasingly important posts in the musical hierarchy of Vienna. In 1792, he became the choirmaster at the Carmelite Church, and two years later, he was appointed to the same position at the important Schottenkloster, a post he would hold for three decades. His big break in the imperial court came in 1804 when he was appointed Vice-Kapellmeister under the long-serving Antonio Salieri. For twenty years, he served as Salieri’s deputy, managing the vast musical operations of the Hapsburg court. When Salieri finally retired in 1824, Eybler was promoted to the top job: Hofkapellmeister, or Chief Court Music Director. It was the most powerful and respected musical position in the Austrian Empire.

Eybler's Musical Style

As a composer, Joseph Eybler was a master craftsman of the Viennese Classical style. His music is characterized by its elegance, formal clarity, and skillful orchestration. His greatest strengths lay in sacred music, where his command of counterpoint and his dignified, expressive style were on full display. He composed over 30 masses, two requiems, vespers, and other liturgical works. His oratorio, Die vier letzten Dinge (The Four Last Things), was a particularly successful work that was performed frequently during his lifetime. His instrumental music includes symphonies, concertos, and a large body of chamber music, all of which are well-constructed and melodically engaging. While his style is often compared to that of Haydn or Michael Haydn, it lacks the revolutionary innovation and profound psychological depth of Mozart or the emerging romantic passion of Beethoven. Eybler was not an innovator; he was a perfecter of the style he inherited, a composer whose music embodied the grace and order of the classical ideal.

Final Years and Legacy

Eybler's long and distinguished career came to a sudden and dramatic end in 1833. In a moment of poignant and tragic irony, he was conducting a performance of the very work that had haunted him for over forty years: Mozart's Requiem. During the performance, he suffered a stroke and collapsed at the podium. He survived, but the stroke left him unable to continue his duties. He was forced to retire, and he spent the final thirteen years of his life in quiet seclusion. Joseph Eybler’s legacy is complex. He was a major figure in his own time, a composer who achieved the highest professional success and earned the respect of the greatest musical minds of his era. Yet, today, his own fine compositions are rarely heard. He is remembered primarily as a supporting character in the lives of Haydn and Mozart, a skilled and honorable musician who stands forever in the shadow of their transcendent genius, linked to them by friendship, loyalty, and one impossible, unfinished task.

References and Further Reading

• Landon, H. C. Robbins. 1791: Mozart's Last Year. Schirmer Books, 1988.

• Wolff, Christoph. Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score. University of California Press, 1994.

• Rice, John A. Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera. University of Chicago Press, 1998.

• Heartz, Daniel. Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven, 1781-1802. W. W. Norton & Company, 2009.

• Freeman, Robert, and Wyn Jones, David. "Eybler, Joseph." Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press, 2001.