Creation (oratorio)

Composition

Haydn had the idea to write large a oratorio at the time of its visits in England in 1791 - 1792 and in 1794 - 1795, when he heard those of Haendel played by full orchestras. Israel in Egypt was possibly of this number. It is probable that Haydn wanted to try to reach a result comparable while making use of the musical language suitable for the traditional style, then with its apogee.

He worked on this oratorio between October 1796 and April 1798. This exercise was also obviously an act of faith for this very religious type-setter: it was accustomed to writing Gloire with God at the end of each finished work. Later, it made the following remark: “I was never as devout as at the time where I worked on Creation; I threw myself to knees at each day to beseech God to give me the force necessary to finish my work”. Haydn composed the major part of the oratorio in its residence of the Mariahilf suburb of Vienna. This house is now known under the name of Haydnhaus . At that time, it had never devoted as much time to only one work. To be explained, he wrote: “I devoted much time to it because I knew that it would last a long time”. In fact, he worked with his project up to the point to fall into one long period from disease after his first execution.

The partition autograph of Haydn is lost since 1803. Nowadays, one uses a partition published in Vienna in 1800. The partition “most authentic”, that of the Tonkünstler-Societat , going back to 1799 and annotated by Haydn, are at the national library of Vienna. There are several other copies of the manuscript, like the Estate , or of the hybrid editions prepared by experts during the last two centuries.

History of the Booklet

The text of Creation has a long story. Its three sources are the Genesis, the Book of the Psalms and the poem epic of John Milton, Paradise Lost (the lost Paradise). In 1795, when Haydn left England, the business manager Johann Peter Solomon (1745-1815), which organized its concerts, forwarded to him a new poem entitled the Creation of the World . This manuscript had already been proposed in Haendel, but the old Master had not worked above, because of its verbeux style, the execution of the work put in music would have lasted four hours. The booklet was probably transmitted to Solomon by Thomas Linley Senior. (1733-1795), a leader of oratorio of Drury Lane. Linley (sometimes called Lidley or Liddle) itself would have written the original English booklet, but A. Peter Brown (who prepared a particularly good " partition authentique") and H.C. Robbins Landon, declare that the original author remains anonymous.

When Haydn returned to Vienna, it sent the booklet to the Baron van Swieten. The Baron carried out several careers as a diplomat, librarian in load of the imperial library, musician amateur and generous protective of the music and arts. he is mainly responsible for the rehandling of the English booklet towards a translation in German ( Die Schöpfung ) that Haydn could use in order to compose. He also made some suggestions with Haydn concerning the arrangement of the various pieces. The work was published in bilingual version (English and German) and is always played in the two languages today. Haydn itself preferred that work is played in English when it was carried out for an anglophone public.

Van Swieten did not speak obviously usually English, and the english language version of the booklet was the target of criticisms and several attempts at improvement. Indeed, it is so awkward that work is sometimes played in German in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Random links: