Kim Patrick Clow asked:

>My question is: how long after Hummel was there a director of music at
>Esterhazy?  Would anyone know their names and tenures?
>
>What about the Esterhazy family itself?  I know it continued up into
>WWII, but are they still in Hungary or Austria?  Are they still
"Princes"?

Here's a partial answer:

Haydn served four princes in the Esterhazy line.  He was hired in 1761
by Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy, who died a year later and was succeeded
by his brother, Nikolaus "The Magnificent," who built the grand summer
palace at Eszterhaza and reigned until 1790.  His son Paul Anton disbanded
most of the musical establishment and pensioned off Haydn, freeing him
to make his famous visits to London between 1791 and 1794.  Paul Anton
died in 1794 and was succeeded by his son Nikolaus, who reigned until
his death in 1833.  Haydn died in 1809.

The second Prince Nikolaus revived the orchestra.  Fond of religious
music, he instituted a series of annual commissions for new masses to
be presented on his wife's name-day.  This tradition engendered Haydn's
last six masses and, in 1807, Beethoven's Mass in C Major, Op.  86.

Upon Haydn's retirement (about 1802?), the post of Kapellmeister went
to J. N. Fuchs, who had been directing the Prince's choral music during
Haydn's absences, while Konzertmeister A. L. Tomasini supervised the
instrumental music.  Hummel served as Konzertmeister from 1804 to 1811.

The court's brilliant music tradition was ended by what <The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians> refers to as "the Austrian financial
crises of 1811." The family's valuable library of music was broken up
in the 1920s, with the scared music remaining at the Esterhazy estate
at Eisenstadt (not far from Vienna) while the secular works went to
Hungary and are now in the national library in Budapest.

<The New Grove> also mentions several other members of the Esterhazy
family as being of musical interest.  Mozart's <Masonic Funeral Music>
was performed at a Vienna Masonic lodge in 1785 in memory of Count Franz
Esterhazy and another recently deceased Masonic brother.  Count Johann
Nepomuk Esterhazy organized a Vienna concert series in 1784, at which
Mozart performed.  Count Johann Karl Esterhazy hired Schubert as piano
teacher for his daughters, and the composer dedicated his Fantasy in F
Minor for piano, four hands, to one of the daughters.  Liszt was born
in Hungary, son of an accountant on an Esterhazy sheep farm.  At the
age of nine, Liszt played in Pressburg at a noble gathering, impressing
the gentlemen so that five of them, including Count Michael Esterhazy,
subscribed an annual income to Liszt's father for six years, to cover
the boy's education abroad.

Nick Jones
Atlanta, Ga.