The Seasons (Haydn)
Encyclopedia
The Seasons is an oratorio
by Joseph Haydn
(H.
21/3).
for The Seasons was provided to Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten
, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart
. Van Swieten's libretto was his own rendering into German of extracts from the long English poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730.
The composition process was arduous for Haydn, in part because his health was gradually failing and partly because Haydn found van Swieten's libretto to be rather taxing. Haydn took two years to complete the work.
The premiere, in Vienna on April 24, 1801, was considered a clear success, but not a success comparable to that of The Creation. In the years that followed, Haydn continued to lead oratorio performances for charitable causes, but it was usually The Creation that he led, not The Seasons.
Like The Creation, The Seasons is a bilingual work. Since Haydn was very popular in England (particularly following his visits there in 1791–1792 and 1794–1795), he wished the work to be performable in English as well as German. Van Swieten therefore retranslated the Thomson original back into English, fitting it to the rhythm of the music. The resulting English text has not always proven satisfying to listeners; for example, one critic writes, "Clinging to [the] retranslation, however, is the heavy-handed imagery of Haydn's sincere, if officious, patron. Gone is the bloom of Thomson's original."
The orchestral parts are for 2 flute
s (1st doubling on piccolo
in one aria), 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s, 2 bassoon
s and contrabassoon
, 4 horn
s, 3 trumpet
s, 2 tenor trombones and bass trombone, timpani
, percussion, and strings
.
In addition, a fortepiano
usually plays in recitative
s, with or without other instruments from the orchestra.
s, aria
s, choruses, and ensemble numbers.
Among the more rousing choruses are a hunting song with horn calls, a wine celebration with dancing peasants (foreshadowing the third movement of Beethoven's
Pastoral Symphony
), a loud thunderstorm (akin to Beethoven's fourth movement), and an absurdly stirring ode to toil:
Haydn remarked that while he had been industrious his whole life long, this was the first occasion he had ever been asked to write a chorus in praise of industry.
Some especially lyrical passages are the choral prayer for a bountiful harvest, "Sei nun gnädig, milder Himmel" (Be thou gracious, O kind heaven), the gentle nightfall that follows the storm, and Hanne's cavatina
on Winter.
The work is filled with the "tone-painting" that also characterized The Creation: a plowman whistles as he works (in fact, he whistles the well-known theme from Haydn's own Surprise Symphony
), a bird shot by a hunter falls from the sky, there is a sunrise (evoking the one in The Creation), and so on.
.
In 1801, August Eberhard Müller
(1767–1817) prepared a piano version of the oratorio's orchestra part, for purposes of rehearsal and informal performance. Haydn, whose health was in decline, did not take on this task himself, but he did look over a draft of Müller's work and wrote some suggested changes in the margins. Amid these changes appeared an off-the-cuff complaint about van Swieten's libretto:
Robbins Landon continues the story as follows:
A later letter of Griesinger's indicates that the rift thus created was not permanent.
The term "Frenchified trash" was almost certainly not a gesture of contempt for France or French people; Haydn in fact had friendly relationships with French musicians (see, e.g. Paris symphonies
). Rather, Haydn was probably referring to an earlier attempt by van Swieten to persuade him to set the croaking of the frogs by showing him a work by the French composer André Grétry that likewise included frog-croaking.
calls both oratorios "among the greatest works of the century", but judges The Seasons to be the musically more successful of the two. Daniel Heartz, writing near the end of a massive three-volume account of the Classical era, writes "The Hunting and Drinking choruses first led me to study Haydn's music more extensively beginning some forty years ago ... no music has elated me more in old age then The Seasons. Michael Steinberg
wrote in program notes that the work "ensure[s] Haydn's premiere place with Titian, Michelangelo, and Turner, Mann and Goethe, Verdi and Stravinsky, as one of the rare artists to whom old age brings the gift of ever bolder invention."
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
by Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
(H.
Hoboken-Verzeichnis
The Hoboken-Verzeichnis is the catalogue of over 750 works by Joseph Haydn as compiled by Anthony van Hoboken.Unlike Ludwig von Köchel's catalogue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's works, or Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Franz Schubert's works, which are both arranged chronologically by date of...
21/3).
Composition, premiere, and reception
Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation (1798), which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe. The librettoLibretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for The Seasons was provided to Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried, Freiherr van Swieten was a diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Austrian Empire during the 18th century...
, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. Van Swieten's libretto was his own rendering into German of extracts from the long English poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730.
The composition process was arduous for Haydn, in part because his health was gradually failing and partly because Haydn found van Swieten's libretto to be rather taxing. Haydn took two years to complete the work.
The premiere, in Vienna on April 24, 1801, was considered a clear success, but not a success comparable to that of The Creation. In the years that followed, Haydn continued to lead oratorio performances for charitable causes, but it was usually The Creation that he led, not The Seasons.
Like The Creation, The Seasons is a bilingual work. Since Haydn was very popular in England (particularly following his visits there in 1791–1792 and 1794–1795), he wished the work to be performable in English as well as German. Van Swieten therefore retranslated the Thomson original back into English, fitting it to the rhythm of the music. The resulting English text has not always proven satisfying to listeners; for example, one critic writes, "Clinging to [the] retranslation, however, is the heavy-handed imagery of Haydn's sincere, if officious, patron. Gone is the bloom of Thomson's original."
Forces
The Seasons is written for a fairly large late-Classical orchestra, a chorus singing mostly in four parts, and three vocal soloists, representing archetypal country folk: Simon (bass), Lucas (tenor), and Hanne (soprano). The solo voices are thus the same three as in The Creation.The orchestral parts are for 2 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s (1st doubling on piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
in one aria), 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s and contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
, 4 horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s, 3 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, 2 tenor trombones and bass trombone, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, percussion, and strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
.
In addition, a fortepiano
Fortepiano
Fortepiano designates the early version of the piano, from its invention by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. It was the instrument for which Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven wrote their piano music...
usually plays in recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
s, with or without other instruments from the orchestra.
Musical content
The oratorio is divided into four parts, corresponding to Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, with the usual recitativeRecitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
s, aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s, choruses, and ensemble numbers.
Among the more rousing choruses are a hunting song with horn calls, a wine celebration with dancing peasants (foreshadowing the third movement of Beethoven's
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
Pastoral Symphony
Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony , is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, and was completed in 1808...
), a loud thunderstorm (akin to Beethoven's fourth movement), and an absurdly stirring ode to toil:
- The huts that shelter us,
- The wool that covers us,
- The food that nourishes us,
- All is thy grant, thy gift,
- O noble toil.
Haydn remarked that while he had been industrious his whole life long, this was the first occasion he had ever been asked to write a chorus in praise of industry.
Some especially lyrical passages are the choral prayer for a bountiful harvest, "Sei nun gnädig, milder Himmel" (Be thou gracious, O kind heaven), the gentle nightfall that follows the storm, and Hanne's cavatina
Cavatina
Cavatina is a musical term, originally a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air...
on Winter.
The work is filled with the "tone-painting" that also characterized The Creation: a plowman whistles as he works (in fact, he whistles the well-known theme from Haydn's own Surprise Symphony
Symphony No. 94 (Haydn)
The Symphony No. 94 in G major is the second of the twelve so-called London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is usually called by its nickname, the Surprise Symphony, although in German it is more often referred to as the Symphony "mit dem Paukenschlag" .-Date of composition:Haydn wrote...
), a bird shot by a hunter falls from the sky, there is a sunrise (evoking the one in The Creation), and so on.
The "French trash" episode
There is some evidence that Haydn himself was not happy with van Swieten's libretto, at least one particular aspect of tone-painting it required, namely the portrayal of the croaking of frogs, which is found during the serene movement that concludes Part II, "Summer". The version of the anecdote given below is from the work of Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins LandonH. C. Robbins Landon
Howard Chandler Robbins Landon was an American musicologist.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and studied music at Swarthmore College and Boston University. He subsequently moved to Europe where he worked as a music critic. From 1947 he undertook research in Vienna on Joseph Haydn, a composer...
.
In 1801, August Eberhard Müller
August Eberhard Müller
August Eberhard Müller was a German composer, organist and choir leader.-Life:Trained by his organist father, he made his first public performance aged eight. He then studied under Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach at Bückeburg, where Müller served as organist at the Ulrichskirche until 1788...
(1767–1817) prepared a piano version of the oratorio's orchestra part, for purposes of rehearsal and informal performance. Haydn, whose health was in decline, did not take on this task himself, but he did look over a draft of Müller's work and wrote some suggested changes in the margins. Amid these changes appeared an off-the-cuff complaint about van Swieten's libretto:
- NB! This whole passage, with its imitation of the frogs, was not my idea: I was forced to write this Frenchified trash. This wretched idea disappears rather soon when the whole orchestra is playing, but it simply cannot be included in the pianoforte reduction.
Robbins Landon continues the story as follows:
- Müller foolishly showed the passage in the enclosed sheet, quoted above, to the editor of the Zeitung fur die elegante Welt, who promptly included it in support of his criticism of Swieten's wretched libretto. Swieten was enraged, and [Haydn's friend] GriesingerGeorg August GriesingerGeorg August von Griesinger was a tutor and diplomat resident in Vienna during the late 18th and 19th centuries. He is remembered for his friendships with the composers Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and for the biography he wrote of Haydn....
reported that His Excellency "intends to rub into Haydn's skin, with salt and pepper, the assertion that he [Haydn] was forced into composing the croaking frogs."
A later letter of Griesinger's indicates that the rift thus created was not permanent.
The term "Frenchified trash" was almost certainly not a gesture of contempt for France or French people; Haydn in fact had friendly relationships with French musicians (see, e.g. Paris symphonies
Paris symphonies
The Paris Symphonies are a group of six symphonies written by Joseph Haydn and performed at the Concert Spirituel, the Concert de la Loge Olympique and the Concert de Amateurs in Paris.-The Symphonies:...
). Rather, Haydn was probably referring to an earlier attempt by van Swieten to persuade him to set the croaking of the frogs by showing him a work by the French composer André Grétry that likewise included frog-croaking.
Critical reception
Although the work has always attracted far less attention than The Creation, it nonetheless has been strongly appreciated by critics. Charles RosenCharles Rosen
Charles Rosen is an American pianist and author on music.-Life and career:In his youth he studied piano with Moriz Rosenthal. Rosenthal, born in 1862, had been a student of Franz Liszt...
calls both oratorios "among the greatest works of the century", but judges The Seasons to be the musically more successful of the two. Daniel Heartz, writing near the end of a massive three-volume account of the Classical era, writes "The Hunting and Drinking choruses first led me to study Haydn's music more extensively beginning some forty years ago ... no music has elated me more in old age then The Seasons. Michael Steinberg
Michael Steinberg
Michael Steinberg is a director, writer and producer. He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. He has directed three films that all premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and has written and/or produced four other award winning features since his debut in 1992...
wrote in program notes that the work "ensure[s] Haydn's premiere place with Titian, Michelangelo, and Turner, Mann and Goethe, Verdi and Stravinsky, as one of the rare artists to whom old age brings the gift of ever bolder invention."