Daventry Choral - Programme Notes |
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JOSEPH HAYDN: CREATION Programme Notes In this performance of Haydn's Creation, we celebrate the bi-centenary of its first performance in 1798. It was composed towards the end of Haydn's life when he had already had many years of experience as Kappelmeister to Prince Nicholas Esterhazy in Austria. By this time Haydn was an accomplished composer of operatic, instrumental and church music, an experienced teacher of singers and conductor of choral performances. After Prince Nicholas' death, Haydn took the opportunity to visit England and there was deeply moved by Handel's Messiah. This awakened in him an interest in the English oratorio, which he felt could more adequately express his deepest thoughts and feelings than the more theatrical manner of previous church music. Thus, in Creation, Rococo affectations disappear and Haydn celebrates ethical humanism and the glory of God in Nature. Composing the oratorio proved a truly congenial task, and the years devoted to it were among the happiest in Haydn's life. He used the text prepared in English, but translated into German by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, based on Milton's account of creation in his epic poem Paradise Lost, and the Biblical text in Genesis. In The Creation, the soloists take the roles of archangels and Adam and Eve, with the soprano being Gabriel (the ruler of paradise, the seraphim and cherubim) and Eve in Part Three. The tenor is Uriel (leader of the heavenly hosts) throughout and the bass is Raphael ( guardian of human spirits) and Adam in Part Three. The first part of The Creation describes the birth of Order from Chaos. This was the motive force behind Haydn's greatest symphonic music and the impulse behind the marvellous prologue to The Creation i n which the lucidity of the key of C major, Let there be light, emerges from the mysterious veiled tonality and chains of dissonant suspensions. The second part deals with Created Nature, which is portrayed in Haydn's works as the background to human li fe. Throughout the oratorio, Haydn uses the interplay of soloists, choir and instruments to achieve his depiction of the sounds of nature and created life, for example tawny lion, flexible tiger, nimble stag and sinuous worm in the bass recitative Straig ht Opening. Part two ends in a climax with the creation of Adam and Eve, following which the choir praises God, the Creator in Achieved is the Glorious Work, which is again repeated after the soloists sing On Thee Each Living Soul Awaits. The third part of the oratorio concentrates on the human love between Adam and Eve and their adoration of God. They survey the creation around them and vow eternal love to each other. The oratorio ends with a great hymn of worship and praise to God the omnipotent Creator. But Uriel has already hinted at the unhappiness which will befall the human pair. Thus The Creation, like creation itself, forms a circle that ends at the point where it began. Life is perpetual renewal, the alternation of Light and Darkness, and Order and Chaos is perennial. Keith and Christine Hide Please feel free to make use of these notes but if you make significant use of them we would appreciate your making an appropriate acknowedgement. |