There are so many aspects of Haydn’s The Creation (Die Schöpfung) that bear closer examination that it is difficult to choose just one subject about which to write the program notes for this performance.  One need look no further than Boston to see the high esteem in which Haydn was held during and just after his lifetime; it is largely because of this oratorio that Boston musicians named their new oratorio ensemble the Handel and Haydn Society in 1815.  Indeed, an argument could certainly be made that it was The Creation, alongside the oratorios of Handel in England, that ignited the great appetite for large scale dramatic oratorios in the 19th century, penned by such composers as Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Dvorák.

So many subjects could be given their own essay treatment here… The role of the three archangels, inherited from Milton’s Paradise Lost.  The relative importance (one-third of the work) that is given to Adam and Eve, reflecting the centrality of rational Man to the universe.  The structure of the work, in which each day ends with a different song of praise.  The many examples of text-painting, from sunrise to different animals (even the lowly worm), to the use of the contrabassoon and trombones to represent the heaviest of the beasts.  The way that Haydn uses different classical musical forms to reflect the text, from sonata-allegro form to rondo.  There is little question why The Creation occupies such an important place in the choral repertoire when one considers just how rich a work it is.

But I have gone back to the very genesis of this oratorio for my subject, to explore a behind-the-scenes connection that I have always found quite interesting.  In reading widely of the music of the Classical period, one encounters from time to time a very interesting background figure, Baron Gottfried van Swieten.  Without his input, it is likely that this work wouldn’t have existed.  To pay him tribute, I would like to explore the rather important role that this quintessential Enlightenment figure played in the lives of the three major composers of the late 18th century.

Baron Gottfried van Swieten and Haydn’s Creation

With the possible exception of Melvil Dewey, who devised the eponymous Dewey Decimal System, it is difficult to imagine a more influential librarian in western history than Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803).  But even though van Swieten, who succeeded his father in the sinecure post of Imperial Librarian in Vienna, is credited with inventing the first card catalog system, it is actually his service to the field of music that has ensured his posthumous fame, at least among musicologists.

Van Swieten’s father, a Dutch doctor and scientist, was awarded the lucrative post of Imperial Librarian as thanks for his years as personal physician to the Empress Maria Theresa.  Thanks to his father’s connections, Gottfried received a first-rate Jesuit education, after which he entered the diplomatic ranks, eventually serving as ambassador to Prussia during an especially delicate period.  During his years in Berlin, Van Swieten, who had an abiding interest in music, was exposed to the music of J.S. Bach, through one of the Leipzig master’s students.  This exposure was to change the course of music history.

Although the Classical period in music history is much shorter than other eras (it is usually defined as 1750-1800 or 1810), its footprint is considerable, owing to the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the three great late 18th-century composers.  (And even there, Beethoven only “half counts” as a Classical composer, since the latter part of his career ushered in Romanticism.)  The lasting popularity of their music—sonatas, string quartets, concerti, symphonies and operas—is rooted in the very tenets of Classicism itself, in which the music was a reflection of the social and intellectual movements of the time.  Socially, it was the last gasp of the aristocracy, which supported the arts through patronage.  The call of the day was for music that was accessible, elegant, gracious, and to a certain extent, anodyne.  Intellectually, this was the period of the Enlightenment, glorifying man’s achievements and vast potential.  This Rationalism ushered in a period of philosophical and scientific inquiry hearkening back to the original Classical period of the Greeks and Romans.

These influences, social and intellectual, produced a movement in music that eschewed the complex counterpoint of Bach and Handel for a musical language that stressed a clear melody (often in the first violins) accompanied by more simple harmonies.  This new musical language was cast in clear forms, themselves reflecting the balanced architecture of ancient Greece and Rome.  Gone were the hidden codes found in the rhetorical gestures of the Baroque; instead, the new aesthetic demanded clear lines spun from diatonic scales.  Such a musical language, combining the frivolity of the French and the vocally-inspired melodies of the Italians, gave birth to a style that culminated most perfectly in the exquisite operas of Mozart.

If this is true, then, why do we find so many Baroque-inspired fugues in the later compositions of Haydn and Mozart?  After all, the learned counterpoint of fugue most closely represents the complex Baroque music theory against which the classicists rebelled.  Enter Baron Gottfried van Swieten.  Though hardly a friend of bourgeois composers (the social structure was still too rigid for that, until swept away by the oncoming tide of revolutions), van Swieten became a patron to Haydn, Mozart and the young Beethoven.  Indeed, Mozart was often a participant in van Swieten’s regular salons in which fugues by Bach and Handel were performed.  Further, van Swieten commissioned Mozart to re-arrange several Handel oratorios (including Messiah), expanding the orchestra to flesh out what had been the continuo part with more woodwinds, as was the Classical practice.  

It seems that van Swieten also encouraged Haydn to pick up Handel’s mantle as a composer of oratorios.  After many decades in the full-time service of the Esterházy family, Haydn was really only free to pursue such personal work after the death of Prince Nikolaus in 1790.  Haydn then spent much of his time in Vienna, where he was in constant contact with Baron van Swieten.  Even more important, Haydn was finally in a position to accept the invitation of the impresario Johann Peter Salomon to visit London, where he was received to great acclaim.  While in England, Haydn heard several Handel oratorios performed, and he was evidently inspired to follow in the Baroque composer’s footsteps.  He was given an English-language libretto about the Old Testament creation story to take back to Vienna with him.  It has even been suggested that Handel himself had once considered setting the libretto, which contains material from Genesis, the Psalms and Milton’s Paradise Lost.  When he returned to Vienna, Haydn gave the English libretto to van Swieten, who fashioned the German version that Haydn set between 1796 and 1798 as Die Schöpfung.  Given the British provenance of the libretto, it is not surprising that van Swieten then retranslated the German libretto to English for performances in English-speaking countries, where it is called The Creation.  However, much has been said and written about the unfelicitousness of van Swieten’s translation, so it is often presented in German. The Creation is surely Haydn’s greatest masterpiece; between its first performance in 1798 and his death in 1809, it was performed nearly fifty times.  

Van Swieten’s efforts in encouraging Franz Joseph Haydn to turn his hand to oratorio composition would have been enough to ensure his fame as one of the most influential patrons in music history, earning his place alongside the great popes and kings of old, or more recent impresarios like Diaghilev and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.  But returning to the Imperial Librarian’s love of the counterpoint of Bach and Handel, we see that van Swieten’s imprint on Haydn’s greatest oratorio goes beyond simply inspiring the composer to write an oratorio.  One of the aspects of the work that lifts it beyond the appealing simplicity of so many other late 18th-century works is the abundance of fugues in The Creation, giving the work a timeless appeal that combines the melodic beauty of the Classical melodies with the Germanic heritage of the fugue, creating a pan-European form that is also found in works like Mozart’s C Minor Mass and Requiem.  So many of the praise choruses in Haydn’s masterpiece are cast as Baroque fugues, redolent of Handel’s oratorios yet somehow still so completely Haydnesque—ebullient, optimistic, and even just a little cheeky. 

It is interesting to note that so much of the music for which Haydn is remembered today—his London symphonies, the late string quartets, his major oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, and the final six masses—all postdate Haydn’s deepened association with Baron van Swieten.  We clearly owe much to this man, the archetype of the Enlightenment aristocrat: rational, well-educated, well-versed in many different areas, and a generous patron of the arts. 

Chris Shepard

© March 2011