The Seasons, Franz Joseph Haydn

• Julia Dewhurst, Soprano
• Deryck Webb, Tenor
• Stephen Foulkes, Baritone

It was during his visit to London that Haydn hear in the summer of 1791 one of the great Handel festivals in Westminster Abbey.  This experience and his subsequent study of Handel's oratorios were the stimulus for his own oratorios, The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801).  Such was the success of the first oratorio that The Vienna Music Society asked for a new work.  Baron van Swieten,  a prominent aristocratic amateur musician in Vienna, had produced the libretto for The Creation (a translation of a libretto on Milton, intended for Handel).  He produced a curious libretto for the second oratorio, translating and adapting the work of the English poet John Thomson.  The resulting text is a mixture of a description of pastoral life with a sincere praise and thanks to God for his creation. 

Haydn worked on The Seasons for three years and a very great labour it proved to be and not always congenial.  Haydn's letters betray his irritation at having to produce musical depictions of frogs croaking, cocks crowing and other countryside sounds!  However, the work as one of the master's finest creations with glorious music for both choir and the three soloists.  He uses a large orchestra including three trombones and a contra bassoon.