JOSEPH HAYDN: THE CREATION

Oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra, Hob. XXI

Joseph Haydn’s The Creation – a musical masterpiece that was celebrated from the very beginning.

For Simon Rattle there is no question that Haydn’s Creation contains everything. The whole world. It looks both towards the past and far into the future of everything music can be. It is balance and revolution at the same time – a true work of the Enlightenment. “Magnificent choruses, graceful melodies, the finest polyphony, all firmly anchored in an optimistic view of humanity – anyone who doesn't automatically feel better after hearing it really needs help,” says Simon Rattle with a wink.

“The Creation is healthy in a very honest way,” he adds. But health also includes a good dose of humour, and Haydn provides it, even in a setting as sacred as the Creation story. At the same time, a work radiating light also casts a few shadows on our own present. What has remained of the spirit of the Enlightenment? And what have we done with “this world, so great, so wonderful”?

To mark his inauguration as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle chose Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. After two concerts on September 21 and 22, 2023 in Munich’s Herkulessaal, the work was performed on September 24 in the historic basilica of Ottobeuren in Upper Swabia, together with the three outstanding soloists Lucy Crowe (soprano), Benjamin Bruns (tenor) and Christian Gerhaher (baritone). The Munich recording of the inaugural concerts is now being released on 2 CDs by BR-KLASSIK.

With this late work, Joseph Haydn celebrated his greatest triumph: The acclaim he received for his oratorio The Creation placed all his previous successes firmly in the shade. He was already very famous as a symphonic composer, his string quartets had won him the adoration of countless nobles and amateur musicians, and his late masses had secured the unwavering approval of his Esterházy prince. However, at its first performance in 1798, “The Creation” caught the spirit of the age – and continues to do so today. The work unites Haydn’s orchestral finesse with powerful choruses, combining the vivid account of the creation story with subtle musical interpretation and making it a musical manifesto, as it were, of the Age of Enlightenment. In this regard, the oratorio has enjoyed an unbroken performance tradition, and continues to pose a challenge to every world-class ensemble today.

In 1946, one year after the end of the war, Haydn’s masterpiece was the first oratorio ever to be performed in the basilica in Ottobeuren – at that time still in the organ loft. The 1986 performance by the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein remains legendary to this day.