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Haydn: Die Schöpfung ("The Creation")
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Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst begins his tenure as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra in September 2002. Mr. Welser-Möst first conducted The Cleveland Orchestra in 1993 and has maintained a close relationship with the Orchestra since that time. His appointment as Music Director was announced in June 1999. Franz Welser-Möst opens The Cleveland Orchestra's 2002-03 subscription season with Haydn's The Creation. During the season he leads the Orchestra on a Midwest tour in October and in an East Coast tour that includes a Carnegie Hall residency in February. He closes the 2002-03 Severance Hall season with concert performances of Verdi's Don Carlo. Franz Welser-Möst made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra in February 1993 and returned to Severance Hall in April 1995. In each subsequent season, he has conducted the Orchestra for two- and three-week engagements. As guest conductor, Mr. Welser-Möst has led the Orchestra in over 70 concerts, in programs comprising a wide-ranging repertoire. Among the highlights of Mr. Welser-Möst's concerts with the Orchestra thus far are critically-acclaimed performances of Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, Haydn's The Seasons, Mozart's Requiem, the oratorio The Book of the Seven Seals and Fourth Symphony of Franz Schmidt, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14. Since making his American debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1989, Mr. Welser-Möst has returned regularly to the United States, appearing with the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Saint Louis. In addition to his three weeks of subscription concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra during the 2001-02 season, he conducted return engagements with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Franz Welser-Möst is also Music Director of the Zurich Opera, where he made his debut in 1992 with Der Rosenkavalier and began his tenure in September 1995. He has conducted 27 new productions and numerous revivals each season, including operas from the French, German, Italian and Slavic repertoire. Highlights of his tenure in Zurich include Wagner's complete Ring Cycle during the 2001-02 season with an additional performance of the cycle at the 2002 Zurich Festival. He also has conducted at the Vienna State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and at the Glyndebourne Festival in Great Britain. Mr. Welser-Möst's rise to international fame as a conductor began in 1986 when he made his debut with the London Philharmonic, commencing a relationship that developed over the next four years and resulted in his being appointed music director in 1990, a position he held for six years. In addition to a continuous relationship with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he has conducted the La Scala Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic. He also has conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra many times since the ensemble's founding in 1986. Mr. Welser-Möst made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1998, conducting the orchestra at the Mozart Festival Week in Salzburg and at Vienna's Musikverein. He made his Berlin Philharmonic debut with concerts in January 2002. Under an exclusive recording contract with EMI, Mr. Welser-Möst has made numerous recordings with the London Philharmonic, including music of Mozart, Bruckner and Schumann, and 20th-century works by Schmidt, Stravinsky, Orff, Kancheli, and Pärt. His recording of Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 won the 1996 Gramophone Award for "best orchestral recording." His recording of Bruckner's Mass No. 3 and Te Deum was nominated for a Grammy Award, as was his first recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra, of music by Korngold. His most recent releases are HK Gruber's Frankenstein!!, Schmidt's The Book of the Seven Seals (which received a Grammy nomination), Schubert's Death and the Maiden string quartet (as orchestrated by Mahler) coupled with Schreker's Chamber Symphony, and the world-premiere recording of Johann Strauss Jr.'s Simplicius with the Zurich Opera Orchestra, which won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis. In October 1995, Mr. Welser-Möst received an "Outstanding Achievement Award" from the Western Law Center for Disability Rights in Los Angeles in recognition of his personal support and advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities, and in particular for his support of the Hartheim Institute, a home for the disabled in Linz, Austria. Mr. Welser-Möst was born in Linz and studied in that city with composer Balduin Sulzer. |
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Die Schöpfung
("The Creation") Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, on March 31, 1732,
and died in Vienna on May 31, 1809. He composed his oratorio Die Schöpfung
("The Creation") in 1796-97. The first private performances
took place at the Schwarzenberg Palace in Vienna on April 30, 1798 (following
a public rehearsal on the 29th); the first public performance at the Burgtheater
on March 19, 1799. Some 180 performers (singers and instrumentalists)
were said to have participated. The earliest American performances were
partial (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1810 and Boston, 1815); the first complete
performance in the United States was given by the Handel & Haydn Society
in Boston on February 16, 1819. The three parts of The Creation contain about two hours of
music. Haydn scored the oratorio for three vocal soloists (soprano, tenor,
bass), mixed choir, and an orchestra of 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets,
2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani,
strings, and keyboard continuo (fortepiano). The Cleveland Orchestra first performed The Creation during its inaugural season, in April 1919 at Grays' Armory. Nikolai Sokoloff and the Orchestra were joined by the singers of the Cleveland Harmonic Club. Most recently, Simon Rattle led the Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and soloists Lillian Watson, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and David Thomas in a pair of performances in April 1987. Christoph von Dohnányi presented the opening movement ("The Representation of Chaos") in January 1990.
The world view expressed in The Creation was entirely consistent with Haydn's own outlook on life. Georg August Griesinger, who conducted extensive interviews with the composer before writing his invaluable biography, reported:
Even as he was writing it, Haydn thought of The Creation as the
summit of his entire life's work, and certainly, that is how many generations
of music-lovers have perceived the oratorio. As Haydn told Griesinger:
"I was never so religious as during the composition of The Creation.
Daily I fell on my knees and asked God for strength." The story of how this work came to be - the creation of The Creation
- began several years before Haydn actually started writing it. During
his first London sojourn in 1791, he attended a Handel festival at Westminster
Abbey. He was not entirely unfamiliar with the music of the Baroque master,
since he was well acquainted with Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the Austrian
diplomat, scholar and music-lover, who had been promoting both Bach and
Handel in Vienna for years. Yet Haydn had never heard anything like this
London event, which featured as many as a thousand performers, singers
and instrumentalists, presenting a wide selection of Handel's music, including
several of the greatest oratorios either in full or in excerpts. It was
said that, upon hearing the "Hallelujah" Chorus from Messiah,
Haydn burst into tears and exclaimed: "He is the master of us all!"
Haydn, honored in England as the greatest living composer, was presented
with a libretto for an oratorio titled The Creation, which had
been intended for Handel but never set to music by him. Haydn took this
libretto, whose author is not known*, back with him to Austria and showed
it to Baron van Swieten, who proceeded to make a German version for Haydn.
The original English libretto has since been lost, so we don't know how
faithful van Swieten was in his translation. Yet although Haydn composed
the work in German, both he and van Swieten wished to provide an English
version as well. In fact, the first printed edition, which came out in
1800, did include the text in both languages. The problem was that the
original English words did not always fit Haydn's music, so van Swieten
had to re-translate certain lines into English. Since his command of the
language was less than perfect, this resulted in numerous infelicities
that other editors have since been trying to correct - not an easy task
because of the very special flavor of the libretto, which combines Biblical
quotes and near-quotes with passages derived from, or influenced by, John
Milton's great 17th-century epic poem, Paradise Lost. Milton's retelling of the creation story in the voice of a subjective
narrator is reflected in the oratorio's libretto by the appearance of
three angels, commenting on the work of God as it unfolds. In van Swieten's
manuscript, the angels are nameless: only in the first edition did they
become the archangels Gabriel (soprano), Uriel (tenor), and Raphael (bass).
With the different voice types came differences in the nature of their
comments: Raphael chronicles the major cosmological events, often accompanied
by mighty upheavals, and the appearance of large animals like whales and
lions. Gabriel strikes a more lyrical tone, celebrating flowery meadows
and soaring birds in arias that make ample use of coloratura. Uriel appears
gentle but resolute as he tells of the defeat of the forces of darkness
and rejoices in the appearance of Man and Woman as the crowning glory
of creation. The Creation is divided into three parts, instead of two as in
most oratorios of the time. But the work that Haydn himself regarded as
his most important model, Messiah, had a ternary structure, as
did most of Handel's oratorios. Far from being a superficial matter, the
tripartite design possesses a profound meaning both in Handel (Nativity
- Passion -- Resurrection) and in Haydn (the creation of the inanimate
world - the animate world - humans). Part I of Haydn's oratorio begins with one of the most astonishing
introductions ever written, "The Representation of Chaos".
The unformed world, to Haydn, is a harmonic labyrinth in which the tonal
rules guiding classical composition are non-existent. The music uncannily
anticipates the 20th century in the way it refuses to settle in any key
or to conform to the conventions of phrase structure. Utterly unpredictable
woodwind solos (a rapid scale in the clarinet, a lightning-like ascent
in the bassoon) flit by like comets in a dark sky. At the end of the recitative
for Raphael and the chorus, a spectacular outburst in C major greets the
words Es werde Licht - und es ward Licht ("Let there be light
- and there was light"). Uriel's aria with chorus starts out as a
lyrical commentary on the First Day. At the mention of Hell's Spirits,
a sudden shift of mood occurs with a modulation into a startlingly remote
key; but by the end of the movement, the blissful feelings are restored,
along with the home tonality. Haydn seems to have set the "big bang" to music in the agitated
storm music between the phrases of Raphael's recitative telling about
the separation of heaven and earth amidst thunder, lightning, rain and
snow. Yet the next moment, the skies are already clear. Gabriel's jubilant
aria, accompanied by the chorus, resounds with the praise of the Second
Day. The fanfare-like melody reaches a glorious high C just before the
end of the aria. Dramatic contrast is provided as Raphael, in a recitative, recounts the
separation of the waters and the continents and, in the following aria
evokes the savage power of the elements at sea and on land. The "dramatic"
key of D minor with its attendant syncopations evokes Mozart's "stormy"
piano concerto in the same key; yet true to the work's unconquerable optimism,
the elements are tamed soon enough. As our glance shifts from the wild
seas to the "limpid brook," the key changes to D major and a
world, once again, is a calm and peaceful place. It becomes even more
so when vegetation appears: Gabriel proclaims the creation of green grass
and fruit-bearing trees in a recitative and elaborates on it in an aria
that begins in simple pastorale style but soon erupts in the most virtuosic
coloratura passages. A brief tenor recitative introduces a choral movement
that was clearly inspired by Handel: the words Denn er hat Himmel und
Erde bekleidet ("For he the heavens and earth has clothed")
inspired a massive fugue, armed with the full arsenal of Baroque contrapuntal
techniques such as augmentation (the theme sung at half its original speed)
and stretto (the successive entrances following upon one another as close
as possible). There is, however, no time to relax after this intense moment
as another highlight follows immediately. Uriel makes us see the sun,
the moon and the stars appear in the sky: a simpler recitativo secco
or "dry" recitative (accompanied only by "dry" chords,
is followed by a recitativo accompagnato in which the flutes and violins
play a slowly ascending scale, with dynamic crescendo, symbolizing the
sunrise. A slower, more introspective passage, with a quiet motion in
the strings, announces the moon. The stars of the firmament prompt "the
sons of God" to sing a song of praise even more exuberant than the
two that have preceded it. In Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes
("The heavens are telling the glory of God,"), the three soloists
are reunited for the first time as an ensemble, which alternates with
the chorus like the smaller and larger groups do in a concerto grosso.
After a brief contrapuntal episode, the movement - and Part I - concludes
in a blaze of sound in the triumphant key of C major. Part II opens with a brief recitative in which Gabriel announces
the creation of birds. The subsequent aria is, above all, a showpiece
for soprano, like No.9 was earlier. But the orchestra is at least an equal
partner. The lengthy introduction is almost like the orchestral exposition
of a concerto. The first clarinet and the first flute vie with the singer
in rendering the song of the lark and the nightingale, respectively. A
pair of bassoons, doubled by violins, represents the cooing dove. After
the birds come the whales: Raphael's recitative turns into an arioso at
the words Seid fruchtbar alle und mehret euch ("Be fruitful
all and multiply"), in a regular tempo and accompanied by a polyphonic
string texture (with divided violas and no violins!). He continues by
announcing the Fifth Day in a recitative followed by a grandiose trio
with chorus in which everything created thus far is surveyed again. Each
of the three archangels admires different aspects of creation, according
to their own personalities: Gabriel sings about the beauties of nature,
Uriel about songbirds and Raphael about the giant Leviathan. Then they
- and the chorus - all join their voices in a lively trio praising all
the wonders of the world. More wildlife appears in the following scene: in his recitativo secco
(No.20) Raphael announces the creation of animals on the dry land and,
in his accompagnato, he literally brings them alive: the energetic
figures of the orchestra evoke, in turn, the lion, the tiger, the stag,
and the steed. The cattle and the sheep prompt another pastoral episode
with flute and bassoon solos, and the crawling worm sends the singer into
the lowest part of his range. In a quiet and dignified Maestoso
aria, Raphael rejoices in seeing "heaven in fullest glory,"
yet in the second half of the same aria notes that "all the work
was not complete," since there were no knowing creatures as yet who
could give God the praise that was His due. This provides the logical
connection to Uriel's recitative and aria in which the creation of the
first human couple is retold. Mit Würd' und Hoheit angetan
("In native worth and honor clad") is perhaps of the most famous
arias in the whole oratorio. It has often been noted how, in its two sections,
Haydn characterizes Adam with "masculine" music (energetic melody,
bold modulations) and Eve with "feminine" softness and grace.
In his book-length essay about The Creation in the Cambridge Music Handbook
Series, Nicholas Temperley comments on the "Eve" section: "Like
the text, the music reflects man's feelings about her rather than her
actual character; but it is a superb example of Haydn's ability to fashion
conventional forms to the needs of his text." The Sixth Day is now
over, the work of the Creation complete, and it is time - after a bass
recitative, which states that God found everything "very good"
- for Haydn's great "Hallelujah" chorus. Vollendet ist das
grosse Werk ("Achieved is the glorious work,") is cast in
a large ABA form. Between two exuberant choral sections, each making ample
use of contrapuntal development, comes an introspective trio for the soloists
in a slow tempo. The duo of the soprano and the tenor, though still "officially"
embodying Gabriel and Uriel, begins to sound a little like a love duet,
foreshadowing Adam and Eve in Part III. They sing about God's blessings,
while Raphael, amidst remote modulations and extreme vocal depths, describes
(but only for a moment) what happens if God hides His face. The bass solo
forms the middle section within a middle section, followed first by a
trio in which Raphael joins his two fellow archangels in their gentle
song of praise, and the by the return of the chorus "Achieved is
the glorious work," even more powerful before. Part III opens with a graceful introduction scored, most unusually
in Haydn, for three solo flutes. The setting is the Garden of Eden, where
Uriel, in an affecting accompagnato, introduces the new protagonists,
the human couple. (In most performances, the singers performing the roles
of Raphael and Gabriel take on the roles of Adam and Eve, respectively,
though occasionally, new singers are engaged for those parts.) Adam and
Eve's first duet, accompanied by the chorus, begins as a heartfelt song
of thanksgiving. It continues with an Allegretto that sounds simple on
the surface but is in fact extremely rich in modulations as Creation is
examined under its various aspects once more: the panorama includes the
sun, the moon, the stars, inanimate nature, plants and animals. In other
words, Haydn offers, near the end of his monumental work, a retrospective
summary of the ground that has been covered. There are plenty of musical
references to past movements, but no literal repeats - and nothing ever
sounds repetitive or redundant. The final portion of the movement brings
a personal touch to the praise that was missing earlier: the transition
from angelic to human voices may be felt in the special warmth of Adam
and Eve's vocal lines. The concluding choral section, with its long-held
notes on Ewigkeit (literally: "eternity" - in the sung
text: "evermore") and the unmistakable excitement throughout,
also indicate the new human dimension, which continue in the recitative
and duet in which Adam and Eve turn from God to each other and confirm
their love. To our modern sensibilities, there is certainly something
chauvinistic about a libretto in which he says "I'll guide you"
and she says, "Your will is law to me; from obedience grows my pride
and happiness." Yet Haydn's music renders these modern charges quite
irrelevant: it focuses on the great love these two people share and makes
their feelings sound totally sincere. The first half of the love duet,
in a slow tempo, is an affecting declaration of love; then, Adam and Eve
give voice to their bliss in a lively and playful Allegro. In his short recitative, Uriel briefly, and somewhat obliquely, warns about "false conceits" and the misguided desire to know "more than you should." But the story of the apple - like anything negative - is entirely outside the purview of this masterpiece of optimism, which ends with a great hymn of praise with a monumental fugue filled with Handel's spirit. The three soloists are briefly joined by a fourth one, an alto, usually selected from the ranks of the chorus (though on Herbert von Karajan's recording of the work, none other but Christa Ludwig was engaged for this rather small task). No "Amen" at the end of a piece of music has ever sounded happier or more powerful.
When Haydn heard the thunderous applause interrupting the performance at the words "And there was light,
A year later - on May 31, 1809 --, Haydn passed away at the age of 77. The world he left behind was hardly the Paradise he had described so eloquently in his great masterwork: nineteen days earlier, on May 12, Vienna had been invaded by Napoleon's army. Yet despite the wars that continued to ravage Europe for six more years, the message of Haydn's two oratorios did not get lost. The world has been thirsty for this enthusiastic affirmation of life ever since.
—Peter Laki |
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