It's intriguing to see how many composers have set down musical compositions based on the months or seasons of the year. I've already blogged about a couple of them, Tchaikovsky's suite of piano pieces and Glazunov's ballet, back in the early days of this blog ( Season's Greetings ), but never carried out my long-held intention to write a bit about Haydn's last and biggest composition for choir, soloists and orchestra. Well, here we go!
The idea of composing this work came about as a direct result of the success of The Creation, and with a libretto "adapted" by the same man, the Baron von Swieten. I place the word "adapted" in quotation marks. Von Swieten claimed that his source was the lengthy pastoral poem The Seasons by the Edinburgh poet James Thomson, but you won't find much trace of him in this libretto! Haydn did a lot of grumbling about the effort this piece cost him, declaring that it nearly killed him, but don't let that mislead you. The ultimate result in Die Jahreszeiten ("The Seasons") shows no sign of falling off in quality, or in the composer's always considerable powers of invention.
Yes, it is a long work -- but so are many of the great operas and oratorios. The running time of my recording of Die Jahreszeiten is almost minute-for-minute with my recording of Messiah, and no one complains about the length of that piece! Each of the four parts (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) lasts about 35 minutes. Each one consists of an orchestral introduction, followed by a nicely-judged mixture of solo recitatives, arias and choral numbers. The irrepressible cheerfulness of Haydn keeps breaking through on every side, in spite of the composer's complaints!
In adapting from Thomson, the librettist created three "characters" to carry the narration forward: Hanne (soprano), Lucas (tenor), and Simon (baritone). This set up the perfect formula for Haydn to compose a traditional oratorio on a most untraditional subject.
I could go on at tremendous length about all the beauties of this greatly-undervalued score. I'll just mention a few favourite highlights here. In "Spring" the aria about the farmer going out to plow the fields is interspersed with quotations from Haydn's Symphony # 94 "Surprise". The "Summer" section includes a thunderstorm, quite convincing, with the breathless silence before the storm especially well illustrated in the music. Other illustrated sounds are the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs.
"Autumn" ends with a spectacular one-two punch from the chorus. First comes a hunting chorus with lively horn fanfares borrowed from Mehul's overture La chasse du jeune Henri. The chorus sings about the hunt in a lusty 6/8 time. After a brief recitative, this is followed by the even more rumbustious chorus in praise of the new wine, which rolls on endlessly -- also in 6/8 -- with rumbling bass notes that suggest the rolling of wine casks and shrilling wind trills invoking the raucous celebrations. The choir brings Autumn to a close with jollity and great vigour!
"Winter" immediately follows with a bleak orchestral introduction suggestive of grey skies and icy fogs. The traveller reaches safe haven in a warm, firelit house. Women sing a spinning song (the forerunner of many others from Mendelssohn to Wagner). Hanne sings an entertaining story about a young lord who makes an improper proposition to a village lass -- whereupon she promptly tricks him out of his horse and rides away laughing at him. The chorus shout their approval of the girl's cleverness. Simon sings an aria in which he summons the wisdom of a lifetime before looking towards the culminating morning of eternity. The choir thereupon sings a splendid and energetic final choral fugue, accompanied by trumpets and drums, which ultimately leads to the opening of the gates of Heaven to the strains of resplendent fanfares and a final fortissimo Amen.
For me, there isn't a single boring bar in the nearly 2 1/2 hours of Die Jahreszeiten, and I hope you'll find it worth investigating any of the half dozen or so fine recordings that have been made through the years.
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