Joseph Haydn, encouraged by the enthusiastic reception given to his oratorio The Creation (1798), set about work on The Seasons, which was first performed at Prince Schwarzenberg’s palace in Vienna in 1801. This work was based on James Thomson’s eighteenth-century cycle of poems with the same title. The four poems describe the successive seasons of the year and reflect on them through a dialogue between three characters: the host Simon (bass), his daughter Jane (soprano) and the young peasant Lucas (tenor), with commentary from a Chorus of Peasants. There is no action in the traditional sense, but rather the natural course of events in nature through the successive seasons of the year. In recent years, more and more people have been discovering the previously unnoticed delights that abound in Haydn’s score. The whole of his painting in sound, with gales and storms, hunting and galloping, sniffing dogs and birdsong, dances, spinning wheels and many other details, is utterly beguiling with its ingenuity and allure. We hear echoes of various symphonies, like unconscious self-quotations. But we also hear that Haydn knew and appreciated Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute and also where Ludwig van Beethoven took the template for his ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. Most appealing of all to a modern-day listener, however, may be that tone of serene joy and affirmation of life.
Ludwik Erhardt
