The Creation

Actually, he had aimed to do no such preposterous thing, and Zarathustra posed no genuine problems.

If the score is the weaker for some of its syrupy and sentimental pages, it includes another, such as the magnificent sunrise picture at the beginning, which can only be placed for overpowering effect beside the passage Let There Be Light and There Was Light in Haydn's Creation.

If ever anything could testify to Strauss's incontestable genius, it is this grandiose page.

Other portions, it may be conceded, lapse into commonplace, but the close in two keys at once, B and C, offered one of the early examples of polytonality that duly outraged the timid.

in the twenty-first century.

Uh, but back when The Creation, uh, premiered, you know, this was the big thing, and not just where it premiered.

It was big all around the known world at that time.

Everyone was scrambling- Okay ... to do performances of The Creation.

And it was, um, one of the works that I believe Haydn himself ended up being pretty darn satisfied with.

[laughs] You know composers can sometimes be their own worst enemy.

Section 1 of Life of Haydn.

The abridged life of Haydn by Dr. Noll, prepared originally as a contribution to a series of biographies which is issued in popular form in Germany, is so simple in its narrative that it would hardly need an introduction were its subject matter confined to the record of Haydn's life, with its many musical triumphs, or to the portraiture of this genial childlike and lovable master the trials and troubles of his youth their intensification in his married life his marvellous musical progress his seclusion at eisenstadt his visits to london and his introduction to its gay world in his old age followed by such wonderful musical triumphs make a story of extraordinary personal interest which the author has heightened with numerous anecdotes illustrating his rare sweetness and geniality there are many discursions however in the work in which dr noll analyzes the component parts of haydn's musical creations and traces the effect of his predecessors as well as of his contemporaries upon his development as an artist to understand these it must be remembered that the author deals with music from a philosophical standpoint choosing schopenhauer for his authority the philosopher whom wagner admires so much and who makes the will the basis of all phenomena applied in a musical sense therefore music is not a matter of sweet sounds whether melody or harmony nor is its principal office the creation of pleasure by these sounds but it is the chief agent of the will in giving expression to its impulses what this theory is has been stated by richard wagner himself in his essay on beethoven in the following words the mere element of music as an idea of the world is not beheld by us but felt instead in the depths of consciousness and we understand that idea to be an immediate revelation of the unity of the will which proceeding from the unity of human nature incontrovertibly exhibits itself to our consciousness as unity with universal nature also which indeed we likewise perceive through sound The definition will afford a clue to some of the author's statements.

It may help to make clearer some of his musical analyses.

The rest of the work may safely be left to the reader.

is it not natural then and excusable also that at times he sought solace away from home an italian singer in particular luigia pozzelli won his affections in later years and bestowed upon him a loving sympathy he writes to her from london in seventeen ninety two thirty-two years after his unfortunate marriage in furious terms my wife bestia infernale has written so much stuff that i had to tell her i would not come to the house any more which has brought her again to her senses a year later he says in a gentler and almost sorrowful tone my wife is ailing most of the time and is always in the same miserable temper but i do not let it distress me any longer there will some time be an end of this torment the remark in Lessing's Jüngere Gelehrten, I am obliged to admit that I have had no other aim than this, to practice those virtues which enable one to endure such a woman, exactly apply to Haydn's case.

At last he could bear it no longer.

He procured board for her with the teacher's stole at Baden, who is spoken of in Mozart's letters, and she died there in 1800. haydn nearly earned that exquisite peace which characterized so many of his adagios but it was the true rest of the soul and it is only here and there that a softly signed chord reminds us of wotan's words the victory was won through toil and trouble from morning until night the unrestrained outpourings of love haydn could not express when adam and eve in the creation or hanschen and lucas sing their fond strains you never think of constance and pomina and yet haydn wrote both these works long after mozart was dead the fullness and dignity of true womanly nature in which his own wife was wanting he was elsewhere to learn and value as we shall yet see the tenderer and deeper notes of the heart are not wanting in his compositions on the contrary he was the first to introduce them in music in all their perfection we now resume the course of our narrative dies says six months passed by before count mortzen knew that his kapellmeister was married circumstances occurred which changed haydn's affairs it became necessary for the count to reduce his large expenses and to dismiss his musicians and thus he lost his position prince esterhazy however a short time before had become acquainted with some of his orchestral pieces and admired them his growing fame his admirable personal character besides morzen's hearty commendations secured for him the position of kapellmeister to the prince in the same year seventeen sixty one and he held it nearly to the close of his life this position settled haydn's future as a composer the esterhazy residence is in the little town of eisenstadt in hungary where the prince's castle supplied accommodation for every style of musical and dramatic performances music in particular had been patronized by the family for many generations here in undisturbed quiet haydn actively devoted himself to those remarkable compositions which deservedly proclaim him the founder of modern instrumental music the prince had a pretty complete orchestra though it was small and a modest chorus with two soloists it was also expected that the servants in attendance after the custom of that time would assist as musicians the entire force of musicians was placed under the direction of the new who was raised to an official position by virtue of his rank he was obliged to appear daily in the antechamber and receive instructions with regard to the music he was also expected to compose what music was necessary and reel the singers his contract of may first seventeen sixty one commends the duty required of him to his skill and zeal and hopes that he will keep the orchestra up to such a standard as will reflect honor upon him and entitle him to further marks of princely favor rarely indeed has a hope been more fully realized the orchestra was soon a superior one and it was not long before the works written for it by haydn became famous throughout the world the very first of the esterhazy symphonies in c major known as the noon showed that he was determined to bring the prince as well as the orchestra to a realization of the work before them it makes demands upon the orchestra which this one could not supply till much later as it was written in a very large and broad style it also has in it a foreshadowing of beethoven's dramatic style in a recitative for violin with orchestra introduced in one movement he himself was also more thoroughly grounded in his own artistic work the ever-increasing interest which the prince took in him to paul anton succeeded the next year nicholas anton following him in seventeen ninety and a second nicholas following anton in seventeen ninety five was a fresh incentive to his creative talent so that the confinement in his rural situation during the twenty years that he passed where the first two princes did not weigh very heavily upon him after seventeen sixty six he spent many of the winter months with his prince in vienna my prince was always satisfied with my works i not only had the encouragement of steady approbation but as leader of the orchestra i could experiment observe what produced and what weakened effects and was thus enabled to improve change make additions or omissions, and venture upon anything.

I was separated from the world.

In this community, the Mennonite Choral Society, every year they did Handel's Messiah at Christmas time.

In the spring, they did either Haydn's Creation or the Mendelssohn Elijah or something like that.

There was a lot of choral music going on.

I grew up singing in children's choruses and children's choir.