Martin Haselböck

Martin Haselböck earned recognition as one of the foremost organists worldwide beginning in the mid-1970s, amassing more than fifty solo discs while performing repeatedly at leading international halls. From the early 1980s onward he also took up the baton for both symphonic and operatic events, producing additional recordings that most often involved his own Wiener Akademie Orchester and concentrated on Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Liszt performed with period instruments.

Born in Vienna on November 23, 1954, Haselböck completed his initial keyboard and composition training at the city’s Musikhochschule before continuing organ studies in Paris under Daniel Roth and Jean Langlais. Composition lessons there were pursued with Michael Radulescu, Anton Heiller, and Friedrich Cerha. After securing first prize at the 1972 Vienna-Melk organ competition, he embarked on his professional path the next year. Alongside an expanding recital calendar he assumed two notable Viennese organ positions, first at St. Augustine’s Church and then, in 1977, as Court Organist at the Vienna Hofkapelle.

During the 1980s Haselböck turned increasingly to conducting. In 1985 he established the period-instrument Wiener Akademie Orchester, although he still accepted guest engagements with other ensembles across Europe and North America. He sustained parallel careers as organist and conductor while occupying successive teaching posts: at Iowa’s Luther College from 1977, at the Vienna Musikhochschule from 1979, and at the Lübeck Musikhochschule from 1986. Between 1978 and 2000 he served as chief editor of Universal Edition’s Organ Edition series. His operatic work gained wider attention in 1991 when his Don Giovanni at the Prague Mozart Festival drew strong critical praise. On the organ he undertook extensive recording projects, including complete cycles of J. S. Bach and Liszt together with individual works such as the Haydn and Krenek organ concertos; several composers, among them Krenek, wrote pieces specifically for him. The Liszt cycle, completed in 1986, received the Hungarian Liszt prize, and further major European awards followed his discs.

Subsequent successes encompassed staged Handel operas at the Salzburg Festival—Radamisto in 2002 and Il trionfo del tempo in 2004. He continues to teach as professor of organ at the University of Vienna, serves on competition juries, and advises on new organ installations. Beginning with the 2005–2006 season he became music director of the Los Angeles-based Baroque ensemble Musica Angelica; his opening program was an all-Bach evening in which he also performed the organ part of Cantata No. 35. In the 2010s Haselböck and the Wiener Akademie recorded Beethoven’s symphonies for Alpha, seeking to replicate the acoustic and instrumental conditions of the composer’s own premières. Earlier recordings by the same forces were remastered and reissued by Aparte in 2021, and in 2022 the ensemble launched a fresh project devoted to Liszt’s sacred music.