The Creation

Haydn’s first seasons of concerts in prosperous London in 1791-92 proved a triumphant success. His lengthy visit, followed by a return to England in 1794-95, allowed him to experience the high quality and exceptional variety of the capital city’s music-making, including performances of Handel’s oratorios by massed choirs at Westminster Abbey. These proved the direct inspiration for The Creation, one of the great landmarks of early-19th-century music. Haydn’s oratorio, written in 1797-98, scored an immediate hit at its first public performance in Vienna in 1799. The composer employed a dazzling variety of orchestral colours, combinations of choral and solo voices and musical styles ancient and modern to depict the story of God’s formation of heaven and Earth and all living things. The work’s original German libretto was constructed by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a diplomat with a passion for the music of Handel and J.S. Bach, in part from passages from the Book of Genesis and in part from newly written poetic arias and choruses. Its subject matter clearly appealed to the devoutly religious Haydn, as did the text’s shrewdly judged division into recitatives and arias for soprano, tenor and bass—who appear in the first part as the archangels Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, and as Adam (bass) and Eve (soprano) in the third and final part—and choruses based on psalm verses. Haydn’s orchestral introduction, “The Representation of Chaos”, strikes the ear with its dark-hued tones, as does the mighty choral outburst that announces the creation of “light”, a breathtaking moment of drama. Haydn’s invention never wavers, delivering vivid musical portraits of God’s handiwork and a profoundly moving vision of Eden’s paradise, crowned by a final choral hymn of praise.