Esterházy

Hungarian noble family, noted as musical patrons. The earliest family member with an interest in music was Pál (1635-1713), a statesman and soldier and palatine of Hungary, who engaged a choir and orchestra at Eisenstadt in 1674 and composed 55 cantatas (published in 1711). Joseph Haydn served four of the princes: Paul Anton (reigned 1734-62), his brother Nikolaus ‘the Magnificent’ (1762-90), Nikolaus's son Anton (1790-94), and Anton's son Nikolaus (1794-1833). Their ancestral castle is in Eisenstadt (Kismarton); in the 1760s Prince Nikolaus built the family palace, Eszterháza, on the Neusiedler See. Prince Paul Anton and Prince Nikolaus ‘the Magnificent’ were both instrumentalists; Haydn wrote baryton works for the latter. Prince Anton disbanded the court orchestra in 1790, leaving Haydn free to go to London, but Prince Nikolaus revived it and commissioned six masses from Haydn and one from Beethoven. Subsequently music at the court declined. Other relatives of the family were active in Viennese musical life.

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Nikolaus von Löwen, Nicholas of Louvain (1339-1402), secretary to Heinrich Blankhart, a bookseller in Strasburg, and possibly later to Ruland Merswin, may have originated the myth of the mystic ‘der Große Gottesfreund vom Oberlande’.

Hungarian princely family in existence since the 17th century. Its members held a number of military, political, and religious positions and were influential patrons of the arts, particularly regarding the career of Franz Joseph Haydn.