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CAMBRIDGE MUSIC HANDBOOKS Haydn: The Creation CAMBRIDGE MUSIC HANDBOOKS GENERAL EDITOR: Julian Rushton Cambridge Music Handbooks provide accessible introductions to major musical works, written by the most informed commentators in the field. With the concert-goer, performer and student in mind, the books present essential information on the historical and musical context, the composition, and the performance and reception history of each work, or group of works, as well as critical discus sion of the music. Other published titles Bach: The Brandenburg Concertos MALCOLM BOYD Bach: Mass in B Minor JOHN BUTT Beethoven: Missa solemnis WILLIAM DRABKIN Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 NICHOLAS COOK Berg: Violin Concerto ANTHONY POP LE Berlioz: Romeo etJuliette JULIAN RUSHTON Chopin: The Four Ballades JIM SAMSON 1-Iandel:Messiah DONALD BURROWS Debussy: La mer SIMON TREZISE Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 50 w. DEAN SUTCLIFFE Janacek: GlagoliticMass PAUL WINGFIELD Mahler: Symphony No. 3 PETER FRANKLIN Mendelssohn: TheHebridesandotherovertures R. LARRY TODD Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony ELAINE SISMAN Musorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition MICHAEL RUSS Schoenberg: Pie"ot lunaire JON ATHAN DUNSBY Schubert: Die schoneMullerin SUSAN YOUENS Schumann: Fantasie, Op. 17 NICHOLAS MARSTON Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 JAMES HEPOKOSKI Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra Jo H N w ILL I AM so N Stravinsky: Oedipus rex STEPHEN WALSH 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