HAYDN'S
THE SEASONS
Sunday, September 16, 7:30 PM
First United Methodist Church, Evanston
Ticket Prices: $55, $45, $35
Pre-Concert Lecture: 6:30 PM
Monday, September 17, 7:30 PM
Harris Theater, Chicago
(Millennium Park)
Ticket Prices: $75, $60, $50, $40, $30
Pre-Concert Lecture: 6:30 PM
SPONSOR:
Exelon Corporation
PROGRAM
The Seasons
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Chorus from Autumn: "Hört, hört, das laute Getön" |
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Aria from Spring: "Schon eilet froh der Ackermann" |
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Trio and chorus from Winter: "Dann bricht der grosse Morgen an" |
Music of the Baroque Chorus and Orchestra
The cycle of nature has long fascinated composers. In his final masterpiece for chorus and orchestra, Joseph Haydn paints vivid musical pictures- the splendor of the sunrise, the hush of nightfall after the terror of a storm, the call of the hunt. Don't miss this exuberant, witty celebration of the wonders of nature and the charms of country life. Haydn's glorious portrayal of the four seasons opens the Music of the Baroque concert season in grand style.
Program Notes
When Joseph Haydn first heard Handel’s oratorios, according to a friend, he was “struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies and had known nothing up to that moment. He meditated on every note and drew from those most learned scores the essence of true musical grandeur.” As Haydn himself put it, Handel’s works inspired him to “write a work that will give permanent fame to my name in the world.” The perfect opportunity soon arose. During a visit to London in 1794–95, J. P. Salomán gave Haydn an anonymous English libretto entitled The Creation, which reportedly had been written for Handel but never used.
Upon his return to Vienna, Haydn shared the libretto with Baron Gottfried Van Swieten, an important patron of music with whom Haydn had worked on the Seven Last Words. Seeing the text’s potential, Van Swieten began the process of translating it into German, and just as important, securing commitments from other wealthy individuals willing to finance its performance. Under Haydn’s direction, Die Schöpfung debuted on April 30, 1798 at the Palais Schwarzenberg. The impact of the work on its audience was palpable. As Haydn himself later recounted, “One moment I was as cold as ice, the next I seemed on fire; more than once I was afraid I should have a stroke.” The Creation was performed several times that same year, and soon took its place in history as the second most frequently performed oratorio after Handel’s Messiah.
Doubtless eager to capitalize upon The Creation’s success, Van Swieten and his circle quickly commissioned another oratorio: Die Jahreszeiten, or The Seasons. Just as The Creation was based in part on Milton’s Paradise Lost, so was its sequel derived from another epic poem: eighteenth-century writer James Thomson’s popular work of the same name. While scholars disagree about exactly how much involvement Van Swieten had in the Creation libretto, his creative role in The Seasons was obvious from the start. The length of Thomson’s work precluded complete musical treatment, so Van Swieten selected individual scenes for the new oratorio and translated the “character”—if not the precise text—of the verse into German.
The Creation’s popularity meant that expectations of the new work were high from the start, and publicity began long before Haydn had actually completed the oratorio. According to the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig, Haydn had finished “Spring” by March 1799, and there may have been a “sneak preview” given in the Palais Schwarzenberg around the same time. Despite early indications of a quick finish, it took Haydn over two years to complete the piece, and The Seasons finally premiered at the palace on April 24, 1801. Demand for the work was so great that it was performed several times over the next few days. As Haydn wrote to Pleyel, The Seasons was an “unparalleled success,” and he informed fellow composer Clementi that “…the music to my Seasons has been received with the same unanimous approval as The Creation; indeed many go so far as to prefer it, on account of its [greater] variety.”
Why did Haydn take so long to compose The Seasons? Some scholars cite Haydn’s increasingly poor health as the reason for the delay; just over a year later, long-term illness forced Haydn to abandon composition forever. Others suggest that the composer found the work’s down-to-earth subject matter less inspiring than that of The Creation. Indeed, The Seasons is packed with vivid musical depictions of the natural world. Audiences have long delighted at the picturesque croaking frogs, chirping crickets and tolling bells, but Haydn was reportedly unimpressed with these programmatic elements, even going so far as to call them “French trash.”
As Charles Rosen explains in The Classical Style, however, these musical pictures are essential to the work’s meaning: “The Seasons and The Creation are descriptions of the entire universe as Haydn knew it. The imposed simplicity of the pastoral style was the condition which made it possible to grasp subjects of such immensity: Without the pretense of naïveté in the deepest sense of the spontaneous and unaffected response of the child’s eye to the world, these works could not exist at all.” Rosen goes on to explain how this relates to Haydn’s compositional style, writing “The subject of pastoral is not Nature itself, but man’s relation to nature and to what is “natural”: this is the reason for the extreme stylization of Haydn’s descriptive writing in the oratorios.” While the charming musical depictions that abound in The Seasons bring nature to life, they simultaneously bring the larger philosophical question of the relationship of humankind to the natural world and its Creator firmly within our grasp.
As one might expect, The Seasons consists of four movements: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, each of which ultimately serves as a metaphor for an aspect of our own existence. In each of the sections, three soloists—the farmer Simon, his daughter Hanne, and a young countryman named Lucas—invite listeners to experience each season through their eyes. (One of the most frequently used words in the oratorio is “seht,” or “see.”) In his setting, Haydn takes advantage of the opportunities the text provides, but also adds his own nuances of meaning. At the opening of the work, the libretto states that the introduction represents the passage from winter into spring. Rather than imitating the direction literally, Haydn maintains a stormy tone throughout the opening number, allowing the winter turbulence to dissipate only in the accompanied recitative that follows (“Seht, wie der strenge Winter flieht!”).
The recitatives, arias and choruses that follow immerse the listener in a time of renewal, rich with verdant fields, gentle rains and fragrant flowers. Simon’s jovial aria “Schon eilet froh,” for example, paints a picture of a farmer hard at work, singing a phrase from a favorite song (in this case, the main theme from the slow movement of Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony). Lambs jump, fish swim, bees swarm and birds flutter in the trio and chorus “Oh, wie lieblich ist die Anblick.” After reveling in the pleasures of the sensual world, the final chorus serves as a reminder that the “eternal, mighty, gracious Lord” is the ultimate source of it all.
While the first part of the oratorio celebrates the beginning of life, “Summer” showcases nature’s strength and unpredictability. The movement begins with a short instrumental passage and recitative, whose languid melodies and slow tempo perfectly illustrate the approach “with faltering steps” of the gray dawn. The song of a bird, played by the oboe, punctuates the gloom, calling the farmer to begin his day. The sun’s life-giving warmth soon turns to oppressive heat (“Die Mittagssonne brennet jetzt”), however, and a nearby shady grove provides some relief (“Wilkommen jetzt, o dunkler Hain”). A lengthy period of foreboding stillness culminates in a summer storm, erupting in thunderous timpani, raging orchestra and full chorus (“Ach, das Ungewitter naht!”). Idyllic calm finally returns in the concluding trio and chorus, as calling quail, chirping crickets and the famous croaking frogs vividly illustrate the bucolic scene.
The bountiful harvest—and, by extension, the virtues of hard work—take center stage in “Autumn,” which opens with a lighthearted instrumental introduction “expressing the farmer’s delight in the rich harvest.” In the first trio and chorus, “So lohnet die Natur,” extended counterpoint illustrates the many blessings the peasants’ labor has earned them. Labor brings other benefits as well; in the duet “Ihr Schönen aus der Stadt,” virtue and devotion bring true love as well. The bare fields remind the farmer that he needs to rid his fields of “uninvited guests,” leading directly into an extended hunting scene full of evocative music. Scurrying strings illustrate the hunting hound as he searches for his prey in the aria “Seht auf die breiten Wiesen hin!”, while hunting horns echo throughout the chorus “Hört das laute Getön.” Autumn ends with the grape harvest and its festive corollary, drinking wine. As increasing amounts of the beverage are consumed, the crowd sings the praises of the “grape that brings us joy” in an ebullient concluding chorus Haydn reportedly described as a “sozzled fugue.”
The celebration comes to an abrupt halt with restrained and somber music, signaling the arrival of the dark, cold days of “Winter.” While the opening numbers interpret winter as an end, an unexpected gleam of light in Lucas’s aria “Hier steht der Wand’rer nun” takes us into a cozy cottage, sharply contrasting winter’s chill with the comforts of domesticity. After a charming spinning song, Hanne tells the story of a virtuous maiden who outwits a country squire when he attempts to buy her affections. Although the simple pleasures of peasant life provide a momentary diversion, they ultimately lead to the true meaning of The Seasons. In the aria “Erblicke hier, betörter Mensch,” Simon alludes to the seasons as a metaphor for the cycle of human life, singing: “Your brief Spring has faded/your Summer strength is exhausted,/your Autumn declines towards old age/and pale Winter approaches.” He goes on to explain that the only constant is virtue, which leads us “through grief and joy/to the highest goal:” entrance into heaven. The final trio and chorus move from the sensual to the spiritual, promising that those who “shunned sin and lived a good life” will enjoy an eternal spring in “the glory of Thy realm.”
© Jennifer More Glagov 2007