Ravinia 2026 Issue 5

choruses of peasants and hunters. The compos- ite nature of the text prompted van Swieten to withhold his name from the published libretto, recognizing the work simply as “The Seasons af- ter Thomson.” The baron maintained a handwritten libretto on which he notated suggestions for Haydn. A composer in his own right, van Swieten nat- urally approached text as a source of musical inspiration. Some comments, such as “The in- troduction should describe morning twilight,” were atmospheric. Others conveyed astonishing levels of detail: “Then I would like to have the melodic lines of the words ‘Ewiger’ &c. used ei- ther as the theme or as the countersubject of the fugue, which is to enter with the words ‘Ehre, Lob’ &c., and to this end the words ‘Ewiger’ &c. after the whole chorus is repeated, have been ap- pointed once again in the three principal parts, each one of them, so that the beginning of the fugue ‘Ehre, Lob’ &c. can be clearly realized.” Haydn rejected several recommendations but adopted numerous others. At a later stage, van Swieten translated the German libretto back into English—his command of the language proved limited and often stilted—and into French to enable performances in all three languages. Several passages in the libretto proved espe- cially troublesome for Haydn. Georg August Griesinger, his close friend and first biographer, recalled the composer’s objection to a passage early in “Autumn” that glorifies an abstraction, the Hymn to Industry. “All my life long I have been industrious,” remarked Haydn, “but it has never occurred to me to compose a ‘Praise of Industry.’ ” At the opposite extreme, excessive pictorialism provoked an angrier response. Ac- cording to August Eberhard Müller, who was preparing a piano reduction of The Seasons , Haydn tried to distance himself from the imi- tative animal sounds near the end of “Summer.” “This whole passage,” Haydn wrote to Müller on December 11, 1801, “with its imitation of the frogs, was not my idea. I was forced to write this Baron Gottfried van Swieten by C. Clavereau (perhaps Victor Clavereau) Frenchified trash. This wretched idea disappears rather soon when the orchestra is playing, but it simply cannot be included in the pianoforte re- duction.” Müller rather unwisely shared Haydn’s letter with A.G. Spazier, editor of the Zeitung für die elegante Welt , who quoted it in his review of The Seasons . Needless to say, Baron van Swieten did not take the public criticism kindly. Notwithstanding these isolated aesthetic mis- alignments, Haydn and van Swieten collabora- tively shaped an oratorio quite distinct from The Creation , one rich in pastoral rather than divine imagery. Thomson’s poems—and the libretto derived from them—unfold in a series of vivid, self-contained vignettes, a quality Carl Friedrich Zelter observed in his extensive review for the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (May 2, 1804). “The total impression of The Seasons is like a gallery, a suite of paintings, where the various pictures of physical objects are exposed to a si- multaneous inner reflection. … The whole in- tention therefore is sensuous, is supposed to act sensuously and to disappear from the senses even as it appeared … as long as one does not cross the magic circle which poet and composer have clearly drawn, or ask for something they did not intend.” The final sequence in “Autumn” constitutes one such “painting”—a raucous rustic hunt followed soon after by a Bacchic feast. Haydn introduces several authentic horn calls as the peasants, hunters, and dogs begin the chase. The unfortunate stag runs and leaps to the point of exhaustion before finally succumbing to the hunters, at which point the crowd bursts into a jubilant song announcing its demise. Flush with victory, the country folk roll out wine bar- rels for their all-night revelry, accompanied by instruments, singing, and exuberant shouts of “hooray” and “cheers”! Haydn’s aristocratic patrons attended the private premiere of The Seasons at Prince Schwarzen- berg’s palace on April 24, 1801, followed by sev- eral repeat concerts for invited guests. The first public performance took place on May 29 in the Large Redoutensaal of the Imperial Palace. The Seasons was first heard outside Austrian territo- ries in Leipzig on December 21, 1801. Although the oratorio developed a modest following in Germany, it almost always stood in the shadow of The Creation . There are no documented per- formances of The Seasons in England or France during Haydn’s lifetime. Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, H. VIIb:1 Haydn joined the luxurious court of Paul II An- ton, Prince Esterházy, as Vice-Kapellmeister in 1761. The prince planned to increase musical activities at his palace in Eisenstadt, especially operatic and instrumental performances, and Haydn would oversee much of this growth. During the next few years, the number of court musicians nearly doubled. Among the new re- cruits was talented cellist Joseph Weigl, whom Haydn engaged on June 1, 1761. Paul Anton died the following year, but his brother and succes- sor—known as “Nikolaus the Magnificent”— lavished even greater riches on music. Life for a court musician, as Haydn soon discov- ered, was highly regulated. In addition to specif- ic musical and administrative responsibilities, his contract specified modes of deportment and stipulated that he “avoid undue familiarity in eating and drinking or otherwise in his relations with [other musicians], lest he should lose the respect due him.” All musicians, including Vice Kapellmeister Haydn, lodged in the same build- ing, making it almost impossible to avoid frater- nizing. Haydn’s concertos from these early Es- terházy years might have celebrated his covert friendships with the court musicians. For years, all that was known of the Cello Con- certo in C major came from fragmentary entries in Haydn’s personal works catalogue, begun in 1765. The concerto was written at Eisenstadt for Weigl, who was employed by the prince between 1761 and 1769. Scholars consider 1765 the most likely completion date. Nearly two centuries lat- er, in 1961, archivist Oldřich Pulkert rediscov- ered the orchestral parts—signed by Weigl—in the Music Department of the National Museum in Prague. These manuscripts originated at Ra- denín Castle, located in southern Bohemia, as part of the archives of Count Kolowrat-Krakow- ský and his successor, Count Latour. Hungarian cellist Miloš Sádlo gave the modern premiere of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major on May 19, 1962, with the Czechoslovak Radio Sym- phony Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras. The small instrumental requirements corre- sponded to the available musicians at Eisen- stadt. Haydn’s writing treads a fine line between the waning Baroque style and the newer Clas- sical idiom. In the Moderato , light galant me- lodic writing and increased development lend Joseph Weigl by Josef Kriehuber (1829) RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 75