Haydn – The Creation

“I was never so devout as when I was at work on The Creation; I fell on my knees each day and begged God to give me the strength to finish the work….I spent much time over it because I expect it to last for a long time….” –F.J.H.

The last major work of Franz Joseph Haydn’s lengthy career is also one of the masterpieces of the choral-orchestral repertoire, and a microcosm of the optimistic faith of the composer and the Enlightenment era in which he lived.

Haydn worked on the oratorio for a year and a half, and published editions in both German and English, making this the first bilingual major work in the canon. The 1798 Vienna premiere of the work, open only to a select private audience, caused such buzz (Haydn, by this point in his artistic life, had achieved rock-star status in both Austria and England) that the streets outside the Schwarzenberg Palace filled with curious spectators; it took thirty police officers to keep them contained. Two centuries later, the work remains enormously popular, thanks to its abundance of hummable melodies, pictorial text-setting, and irrepressible cheer.

Surely any composer, looking over this “glorious work,” would have had to conclude that “it was good”—though the famously humble Haydn, who deflected an outburst of applause at an early performance by pointing demurely to the sky, would never have admitted as much.

Notes by Eliza Rubenstein