Program Notes
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)
THE CREATION
Duration: ca. 109 minutes
Most rock stars are on the decline by their mid-
60s, but not Haydn. His symphonies and string
quartets were the rage of Europe in the late 1700s,
particularly in London, where he attended feted
concerts of his music and enjoyed the adulation
over his 12 London symphonies.
For the English who so admired his music, Haydn
wanted to write a dramatic oratorio with text in a
language they could grasp, much like Handel did
a half century earlier with his Messiah. So Haydn
tackled what would be his most ambitious project
ever: a musical story he called The Creation, a work
of honest piety that may well have given Beethoven
food for thought in crafting his Ninth Symphony.
“This piece is one of the great ones,’’ said TFO Music
Director Michael Francis. “This was the zenith of the
classical style that everyone knew at the time, and
it was truly a world piece that anyone can relate to,
even today. It makes for thrilling musical drama.’’
Haydn based his ideas on Milton’s Paradise Lost, as
well as passages from Genesis and the Psalms. The
imagery is vivid and at times startling, even 220
years after its first performance in Vienna. Cast in
three parts – the primordial darkness that begins
the first four days, followed by days five and six,
and concluding with the union of Adam and Eve –
it borrows the model perfected by Handel, whom
Haydn called “the master of us all.’’ This reverence
can be heard in the Baroque style of the arias and
highly contrapuntal choruses. The concision and
THE FLORIDA OR 64 CHESTRA | 2018-2019
brilliance of the choruses grow throughout the
work, propelling the action forward.
The opening Representation of Chaos is ingenious,
with the orchestra playing a unison C major chord
to represent emergence from primordial chaos.
Fragments of melody fly haphazardly against
broken harmonies, dissonances fade in and out,
and an eerie, mysterious atmosphere lingers until
chorus and orchestra explode with the appearance
of the first light. Robert Summer, founder of the
Master Chorale and author of Choral Masterworks
from Bach to Britten: Reflections of a Conductor,
marvels at what Haydn achieved and the impact it
had on the future of music.
“The first 27 measures exhibit an unusual
vagueness of harmony reaching far beyond the
Classical Period,’’ he writes. “This introduction
takes a unique place in music history along with
Beethoven’s Praeludium in his Missa Solemnis and
the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde by Wagner.’’
The score of The Creation rarely left Haydn’s side
and would be performed at the last public concert
he attended, in 1808, the year before his death.
Nicholas Temperley, whose updated translation
was used by the Master Chorale during its 2002
performances, called the work “a statement of
warm optimism about the world and our place in
it, clothed in some of the most gorgeous music of
music’s golden age.’’
Program notes by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer and
former music critic for The Tampa Tribune.