Monday 05 July 2010 8:00 pm
Die Schöpfung
Harnoncourt and his ideal cast.
Haydn: The Creation, Hob. XXI:2 (oratorio)
Werner Güra, tenor
Thomas E. Bauer, baritone
Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Concentus Musicus Wien
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, conductor
Haydn himself differentiated between his own two great oratorios by saying that angels sing in The Creation and country folk sing The Seasons. Yet the angels of The Creation sing in a manner so earthly and folk-like as to spring from the heart of the nation, which Haydn understood better than any other composer of his time. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts The Creation in a fantastic line-up, led by the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. He considers Haydn’s most famous work to be a heavenly hymn praising God’s creation as well as an earthly praise of nature and mankind. In a poem composed on the occasion of the 1808 Viennese performance of The Creation, a contemporary wrote that Haydn had reconciled heaven and earth.
The performance will be broadcast on Sunday, July 18, 11.03 a.m. on Ö1.
