(oratorio, 1798)
By the time he first heard a performance of Handel’s Messiah, Franz Joseph Haydn was already considered one of the greatest of all composers and had created countless unforgettable symphonies and string quartets. But when he heard the masterpiece by Handel, he felt that nothing he had created would ever move an audience the way that he saw them moved by Messiah. As he listened to the performance, Haydn felt a sense of awe at Handel’s wedding of music and lyrics, and at the way the audience exploded in wild applause at its conclusion. There and then he determined that he would create something of the same order—something that would be an expression not only of his musical gifts but also of his faith in God.
Written in his midsixties while at the height of his powers, The Creation is a meditation on the seven days of creation as they unfold in the biblical account of Genesis, accented with elements from John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost and the book of Psalms. Devised as a three-part oratorio, the first two parts trace the first six days of creation while the third part takes place on the seventh day, when God rested. The main characters, whose recitatives and arias drive the narrative, include three archangels, Adam, and Eve. These are joined by the glorious choruses, which sing God’s praise and celebrate the wonder of his work.
Baron von Swieten originally wrote the text in the hope that Handel would set it to music, but for some reason he never did, so when Haydn discovered the libretto (originally written in English), he knew he had found words he could bring alive through his music. He asked a friend to translate it into German and entitled it Die Schöpfung, or The Creation. It is most commonly performed today in German, though sometimes will be offered in English.
Composed, Haydn said, to inspire “the worship and adoration of the Creator,” the oratorio is vivid and powerful in its depiction of the unfolding creation story, using Haydn’s musical textures to paint the procession of God’s creative acts. The first several minutes are a bleak and dissonant musical evocation of the chaos that existed before God began his creative work. That is soon left behind when the chorus breaks into a breathless celebration of the creation of light, a moment designed to lift the audience out of their seats. The coming of light is announced by a soft pizzicato on the strings, which is followed by a shattering C-major chord that crashes upon the scene, followed by a mighty chorus of voices singing, “Let there be light!” The premiere audience was so surprised and electrified that the orchestra could not proceed for several minutes, as they had to wait for the enthusiasm to subside.
About an hour into the work, Haydn’s uniqueness really manifests itself in the section portraying the creation of the animals, each of whom is given a “tone poem” to introduce them: the roar of a lion, the pastoral gentleness of cattle and sheep, and the bounding flourish of a stag. Even the insects and worms get their own musical introduction. The Creation concludes with another show-stopping chorus, which leaves the listeners with the exultant praise of God ringing in their ears: “Sing to the Lord, ye voices all!”
Haydn reported to a contemporary biographer about the prayerful attitude he had assumed in composing this work: “Daily I fell on my knees and asked God for strength.”1 He spent more time on The Creation than on any other work he ever composed, and the result of the arduous task is an enthralling musical masterpiece that deserves to stand alongside the more well-known Messiah. From its first performance it was recognized as a major achievement from the industrious Haydn.
In the last year of his life, Haydn was very ill and not able to get around, so he was brought on a stretcher to the last performance he would ever hear of his famous oratorio. He listened with satisfaction, but at the moment when the chorus burst into “And There Was Light,” and the audience burst into spontaneous applause, he lifted up his hands and said, “Not from me. It all comes from above.”
Born in 1792 in Austria, Franz Joseph Haydn was raised in a family that loved music and took their faith seriously. He left home at age six to be trained in music, and by eight he had become a choirboy in Vienna, where he served for nine years. The playful sense of humor that he would later bring to so many of his compositions as an adult did not always serve him well as a child. When, for one of his pranks, he took scissors to the pigtail of another choirboy, he was dismissed from the choir.
After losing his place in the choir, he still wanted to make a living through music, but for a number of years he could only scrape together a meager existence by giving private lessons or singing impromptu serenades along Vienna’s boulevards as a street musician. In time his talents came to the attention of one of the city’s premier teachers, who took Haydn under his wing and began to instruct him in counterpoint and other fundamentals necessary for composition. Writing music never came as easily for Haydn as it did for his contemporary, Mozart, from whom great music seemed to pour effortlessly. Ever industrious, Haydn had to work hard throughout his life, disciplining himself to keep regular hours for composing every day. When inspiration failed to come, he would pray for God’s help.
The result of his hard work and his prayers is an almost bewilderingly large number of pieces of various kinds, which sustain a very high level of consistency in their quality. Haydn was one of the most productive composers in history because he was one of the hardest working. His output includes 104 symphonies, more than sixty-eight string quartets (these two forms he brought to a perfection never heard before), more than one hundred piano pieces, a dozen masses, and two dozen operas. His renown grew to the point where he was in demand throughout Europe, and he even spent a number of very productive years in England, where some of his most accomplished symphonies were written.
Those who knew Haydn were always struck by his geniality and kind nature, joyous embrace of life, and love of good food, good music, and good company. He loved to joke and play pranks on his friends, and this mischievousness shows itself in many of his compositions. He seemed to enjoy making audiences smile, and surprising them with the playfulness that he worked into the pieces. For his famous Surprise symphony (no. 94, 1791), he inserted a jarring chord meant to awaken any listeners who had been lulled to sleep. His Clock symphony (no. 101, 1793–94) has the stately beat of a pendulum clock, and La Poule (no. 83, 1785) imitates the sound of a clucking hen. When some church leaders criticized his music for not being serious enough, he replied, “God gave me a cheerful heart, so he will surely forgive me if I serve him cheerfully.”2 Mozart, with whom he shared a deep and lasting friendship, referred to him as “Papa Haydn,” and the name caught on with his admirers. When the younger Mozart died, Haydn grieved the loss deeply and spoke with unstinting praise of his talent. Theirs was a relationship of respect and admiration rather than competition.
His cheerfulness was not the result of his circumstances, for Haydn did not have an easy life. He experienced extreme poverty while trying to establish his musical career, he was married for forty years to a woman who showed no interest or appreciation for his music and was even known to roll up his written musical scores in order to use them to curl her hair, and he sometimes worked for patrons who treated him more like a slave than a man of genius. But through it all, the music he composed was a reflection of his personality: beautiful and orderly but also cheerful, joyous, and with a good bit of wit and humor.
Franz Joseph Haydn kept that humor until the very end of his life. When it was falsely rumored that he had died, and a special requiem in Paris was planned by fellow musicians, he wrote a letter thanking them for their good intentions and remarking that, “If I had only known of it in time, I could have traveled to Paris to conduct the Requiem myself.”3 Just before his death he told a friend, “I have only to wait like a child for the time when God calls me to himself.”4 Haydn joined the chorus of heaven in 1809.