Table Of ContentCAMBRIDGE MUSIC HANDBOOKS
Haydn: The Creation
CAMBRIDGE MUSIC HANDBOOKS
GENERAL EDITOR: Julian Rushton
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Haydn: The Creation
Nicholas T emperley
Professor ofM usic
University ofI llinois
CAMBRIDGE
,,,,,~.,.,,
~:~ UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1R P
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
I 0 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1991
First published 1991
Reprinted 1994
British Library cataloguing in publication data
Temperley, Nicholas, /932-
Haydn: The Creation. - (Cambridge music handbooks)
l. Austrian music. Haydn, Joseph, I 732-1809
I. Title
782.23092
Library ofC ongress cataloguing in publication data
Temperley, Nicholas.
Haydn, The Creation I Nicholas Temperley.
p. cm. - (Cambridge music handbooks)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521372550-ISBN0 521378656 (pbk)
I. Haydn,Joseph, 1732-1809. Schopfung. I. Title. II. Series.
ML410.H4T361991
782.23-dc20 90-1859 CIP MN
ISBN 0-521-372550 hardback
ISBN 0-521-378656 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 1999
Contents
Preface page vii
Background
1 I
The Viennese oratorio
I
The English oratorio 3
Haydn's career 4
Haydn's oratorios 5
Theology
2 9
Religion in Georgian England IO
Religion in Catholic Austria 15
Haydn's religion 16
3 The libretto 19
Authorship 19
Sources, structure and revision 20
_Literary character 24
Translation and adaptation 26
4 Composition, perfonnance and reception
31 ..
Genesis and composition 31
First performances in Vienna 35
Publication 36
First London performances 39
Early Paris performances 40
First American performances 41
Critical reception 42
5 Design oft he work
47
Overall plan 47
Musical unity 49
Text and musical treatment 52
v
Haydn: The Creation
6 Musical analysis
Secco recitative
Accompanied recitative
Arias and ensembles
Choruses
Orchestral movements
The Hymn
7 Excerpts from critical essays 89
Carl Friedrich Zelter (1802) 89
William Gardiner ( 1811) 93
Thomas Busby (1819) 94
Edward Taylor[?] (1834)
95
P.L.A. (1846) 96
George Alexander Macfarren (1854) 96
Hugo Wolf(l885) 98
Paul Dukas (1904) 100
Heinrich Schenker (1926)
100
Donald Francis Tovey (1934)
103
Karl Geiringer (1963)
106
Charles Rosen (1972)
107
Appendix I: Performance practice
109
Venue
109
Language
109
Vocal soloists
I IO
Choral forces
IIO
Orchestral forces
II I
Continuo realization 113
Tempo
114
Embellishment II5
Standard ornaments .115
Dynamics and articulation II6
Appendix 2: Editions currently available and numbering of
movements 118
Notes
121
Bibliography
129
Index
132
VI
Preface
In 1950 I had my first lessons in music history, from Dr Sydney Watson. He
chose The Creation as one of the great landmarks of European music. He spoke
of it warmly but defensively. But for me it needed no defence, as I had
immediately fallen in love with it.
After an intervening period, when I thought I was learning to look at music
more dispassionately, Edward Olleson's article of 1968 aroused my interest in
the English text, that butt of so many green-room and vestry chuckles. I was led
to write an article on the subject, and then to publish a new edition, where I tried
to deal with the text problem from first principles. Such a background could
well explain this book's distinctly English slant, which will not escape the
reader's notice. But I maintain that the English aspect is exactly the one that has
been unduly neglected in the long history of Creation criticism and scholarship.
At the same time I have tried to make this a balanced survey; I hope that no
significant aspect of the oratorio has been slighted.
I owe a considerable debt to Edward Olleson, for reasons already given; to
Susan Homewood of Peters Edition (London), for drawing attention to some
interesting anomalies in the course of revising my edition; to Valerie Goertzen,
for assisting me in my research; to A. Peter Brown, for telling me about some of
his discoveries before they appeared in print; to David Gilbert, for examining
the Choudens vocal score in Paris; and to Stephen Whiting, for help with
translations. I am also indebted to the staff of many libraries - more particularly
that of the British Library, for supplying microfilms of sources and for
permission to reproduce the title page of the first edition. Finally, I acknowledge
with deep gratitude the repeated assistance of the Research Board· of the
University of Illinois.
vii
BLANK PAGE
I
Background
Haydn completed his greatest work, Die Schjjpfung/The Creation, in 1797,
when he was sixty-five years old. It is generally seen as the culmination of
his career, although his earlier achievements were centred not in oratorio
but in music for orchestra, strings and keyboard, and to a lesser extent in
operas, masses and secular songs.
The immediate occasion for the work was a commissioned private
performance in Vienna, to be followed by public performances in the same
city. Yet The Creation bears little affinity to the Italian or German oratorios
that had been current in Vienna in Haydn's lifetime, nor does it have any
close precedent in his earlier works. Its true ancestor is the English oratorio
of Handel, a form which Haydn absorbed and remoulded in the light of his
long and unequalled experience as a composer of symphonies and operas.
Oratorio, in the eighteenth century, was closer to the theatre than to the
church. The libretto was usually in verse, and was taken from a biblical or
other religious story. It provided for arias, recitatives, choruses and an
opening sinfonia of the same general character as those found in Italian
opera seria, and the vocal and instrumental forces were also similar,
although there were usually more choruses than in an opera. Oratorios
were more at home in theatres or concert halls than in churches - typically,
in Lent or Advent, when operas and plays were considered unsuitable; but
they were generally performed without action or costumes.
The Viennese oratorio
Vienna was the political, economic and cultural centre of a large, prepon
derantly Roman Catholic region, monarchically ruled, in which German
was the dominant though not the only vernacular language. However, from
early in the seventeenth century Vienna's high musical culture had been
dominated by Italian influence, which was only beginning to wane in the last
two decades of the eighteenth century. Italian-language oratorios were
I
