Grosses Festspielhaus
The Creation, Hob.XXI:2
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| Images: Monika Rittershaus |
One might, somewhat fancifully, think of Haydn’s two late
oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, as the counterparts of
their time to Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. That thought briefly entered my mind
prior to this Easter Sunday performance of The Creation, if only because
the Salzburg Easter Festival had given Mahler’s work two days earlier. A more
meaningful comparison would lie with Handel’s oratorios, especially as given a
little while after the composer’s death in Handel ‘Commemorations’ at
Westminster Abbey from 1784 onwards. Haydn attended the sixth of these, ‘by
command and under the patronage of their Majesties’ in 1791, boasting more than
a thousand performers (more, then, than the perennially misnamed ‘Symphony of a
Thousand’. According to an early, albeit not especially reliable biographer,
Giuseppe Carpani, Haydn ‘confessed … that when he heard the music of Hendl [sic] in London, he was struck as if he
had been put back to the beginning of his studies … He meditated on every note
and drew from these most learned scores the essence of true musical grandeur.’ It is at any rate likely that Haydn then
resolved to write a successor work, which he did in collaboration with
Gottfried van Swieten back in Vienna in 1797 and 1798. Both oratorios exist in German
and English forms. (See here
for further discussion.) This Salzburg performance, naturally, was given in German
as Die Schöpfung and with musical forces on the smaller side from the
premiere, although sizes of chorus and orchestra varied significantly during
his lifetime, including performances in which one way or another he
participated.
The opening ’Representation of Chaos’ sounded duly radical and
rigorous in the hands Daniel Harding and the Berlin Philharmonic. It is not
entirely without precedent, especially when considers the introductions to Haydn’s
London Symphonies, but this is on quite a different scale, of duration
and harmonic adventure, as befits the oratorio’s scale and subject—and so it
sounded here, darkly mysterious, with teeming anticipations of potential life
from the ever-outstanding Berlin woodwind emanating from and sinking back into
the terror of the void. I have heard broader, more beautiful introductions, not
least in classic recorded form from this orchestra under Herbert von Karajan,
but it is an open question whether should Chaos sound beautiful. Raphael’s
opening recitative lacked nothing in broadness, imparting a fine sense of
suspense. The coming of Light did all that it should, fitting indeed on the day
of Resurrection, followed by a ringing ‘Und Gott sah das Licht…’ from Andrew
Staples as Uriel. Spring, it seemed, was here—as, at last, it had been outside
earlier in the day. Fallen angels had their moment, orchestral as well as
choral, in the number to come, strings’ slithering descent especially worthy of
note, and Staples’s shading, like that of all soloists, was finely gauged
without pedantry, momentary darkness evoked on the word ‘Schatten’. On the
second day, Konstantin Krimmel and the orchestra had us feel as well as hear in
their opening recitative storms, rain, snow and other consequences of the
Almighty’s creative division of the waters. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller’s vibrato in
Gabriel’s ensuing ‘Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk‘, taken slower than usual
and with an interesting old-Handelian sturdiness, was a little on the broad
side, but my ears soon adjusted and that ceased to be an issue after this
number.
Our three angels announced in their announcing, we could enjoy the delights to
come, Krimmel in particular offering an outstandingly keen sense of narration,
at times confidingly so, in fine partnership with the orchestra and Harding.
Nothing we heard was ever less than vividly communicative and lyrical.
Gear changes such as that towards the end of ‘Rollend in schäumenden Wellen’
might on paper have seemed a little odd, but the transformation in atmosphere
effected worked very well in practice, with ample justification in the
libretto. Likewise Harding’s tempo shift in the trio ‘In holder Anmut steh’n’
for Raphael’s darting of fish. Ornamentation was stylish from all concerned,
orchestral soloists included. Indeed, there was at least much to savour from
the Berlin Philharmonic – Wenzel Fuchs’s delectable clarinet in ‘Auf starkem
Fittiche’, cellos to die for in ‘Mit Würd und Hoheit angetan’, those three
flutes of Eden at the opening of the Third Part led by Emmanuel Pahud, and so
on – as from anywhere else. The Bavarian Radio Chorus was irreproachable,
irresistible throughout, echoing Handel in ‘Vollendet ist das große Werk’,
whilst ravishing woodwind reminded us this was a post-Mozartian world.
A sense of wonder in literal awakening was unmistakeably evoked in the Third Part, further awakening to be heard, equally unmistakeable yet without any crude exaggeration, in the duet of Adam (Krimmel) and Eve (Müller). The world created had come truly into its prelapsarian, if precarious own. There were surprises throughout, even here, as for instance in Harding’s slow tempo for the opening of that duet, sustained throughout. There is, more often than not, no ‘right’ answer to such questions; different performances offer different pathways. Here, kinship with The Magic Flute was readily, meaningfully communicated. In the only secco recitative of any length in the entire work – we are in the realm of humans – the luxury of hearing a cellist of the stature of Bruno Delepelaire alongside the also excellent fortepianist Florian Birsak was almost worth the price of admission alone. Ultimately, it was of course Haydn’s invention, its optimism far from naïve but rather that of a good Catholic who had seen and heard it all and knew something still lay beyond the wars ravaging his Europe, that offered the greatest balm. Amidst the carnage of 2026, we must hope that Haydn, his co-creator Swieten, and all those voices, musical, literary, and theological, who helped shape this enduring masterpiece may yet have a point. That we could hope at all suggests that may just be so.
