 | The Seasons Haydn: Encyclopedia II - The Seasons Haydn - Composition premiere and reception
The Seasons Haydn - Composition premiere and reception
Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation (1798), which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe. The libretto for The Seasons was provided to Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a minor Austrian noble who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart. Van Swieten's libretto was his own rendering into German of extracts from the long English poem of the same title by the James Thomson (1700-1748).
The composition process was arduous for Haydn, in part because his health was gradually failing (soon after the premiere, he became too weak to compose) and partly because Haydn found van Swieten's libretto to be rather taxing. Haydn took two years to complete the work.
The premiere, in Vienna on April 24, 1801, was considered a clear success, but not a success comparable to that of The Creation. In fact, this has been the critical verdict on The Seasons ever since, and to this day it is performed considerably less often than the earlier oratorio.
It is widely felt that the blame lies not with Haydn, who remained at the height of his powers musically, but with the libretto. Oratorios typically are written on weighty subjects, such as episodes and characters from the Christian religion or heroes of classical mythology, but the libretto of The Seasons is mostly about the weather and about everyday life.
The stirring final solo and chorus, which take up weightier matters (the meaning of life, the last trumpet, the eternal afterlife), might be taken to show what a remarkable work Haydn could have composed had he had access to a more serious libretto. Interestingly, these final passages are not from Thompson, but are original work by van Swieten.
Haydn himself complained bitterly about the libretto, calling it "French trash" to his friends. Word got back to van Swieten about Haydn's opinion, which led to something of a falling out between the two.
Other related archivesBeethoven's, Christian religion, Compositions by Joseph Haydn, French horns, Gottfried van Swieten, James Thomson, Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Oratorios, Pastoral Symphony, Surprise Symphony, The Creation, arias, bass trombone, bassoons, cavatina, cellos, clarinets, classical mythology, contrabassoon, double basses, flutes, libretto, oboes, oratorio, recitatives, timpani, trombones, trumpets, violas, violins
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