Elssler, Joseph
Elssler, Joseph
- Horst Walter
Member of Elssler family
(b ?Kiesling, Silesia, 1738/9; d Eszterháza, Oct 26, 1782). Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s Austrian music copyist from August 1764 to October 1782. He was a friend of Haydn, who witnessed his marriage (1766) to Eva Maria Köstler (d 1806) and was godfather to all the children of this marriage. Joseph made fewer copies of Haydn’s works than his son Johann Elssler, but they are a no less valuable part of the source tradition of Haydn’s music; they occur particularly in the Esterházy collection at Budapest, and in Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt and St Florian (von Zahn, 1988, pp.140ff). The magnificent manuscript volumes of baryton trios dedicated to Prince Esterházy deserve special mention, as does Joseph Elssler’s role in the preparation of Haydn’s ‘Entwurf-Katalog’ (EK), which was begun about 1765 (facsimile in Larsen, 1941; further specimens in Landon, 1955; Joseph Haydn: Werke, xiv/4, 1958; Bartha and Somfai, 1960; von Zahn, 1988; facs. parts of Sym. no.48, ed. E. Muntag, Martin, 1982). After Elssler’s death his eldest son, Joseph Elssler jr (b Eisenstadt, bap. 7 Aug 1767; d Vienna, 6 Oct 1843), an oboist with Esterházy’s grenadier military band from the late 1780s, and from 1 November 1800 a member of the prince’s Hofkapelle, took over his father’s office (Haydn Yearbook 1970, pp.118–19). However, because his handwriting has not been identified, the assumption that Joseph Elssler jr is identical with the Esterházy copyist Anonymous 11 (see Bartha and Somfai, 1960) cannot be verified.
For Bibliography, see Elssler family