{"id":2842,"date":"2009-03-04T07:01:23","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T23:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=2842"},"modified":"2018-03-14T13:16:31","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T05:16:31","slug":"oratorios-masses-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/03\/04\/oratorios-masses-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Oratorios & Masses III"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my series of posts<\/a> on large vocal classical works. I\u2019ve blogged about two of Handel\u2019s oratorios: this entry is about both of Haydn\u2019s oratorios.<\/p>\n

Haydn is also one of those lucky composers to have lived a long life. Mozart, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin\u2026 all of them died in their prime and at about in their 30s to 40s, but Haydn lived to a relatively ripe old age of 77. As a composer, he is far better known for his symphonies. His last twelve of 104 symphonies, called the \u2018London\u2019 symphonies, are standard repertoire in any classical music listener\u2019s collection, as also are his string quartets.<\/p>\n

That said, I don\u2019t think Haydn\u2019s music has the same amazing ingenuity as say, a contemporary like Mozart. But in comparison to Handel, Haydn\u2019s music is at least refreshing (Handel had a bad habit of scavenging and on occasion plagiarizing his own music to create new works). Funnily, Haydn was an admirer of Handel\u2019s oratorios, and apparently in one of his frequent visits to London, may have heard a performance of Israel in Egypt <\/em>and became inspired to write his own large vocal works.<\/p>\n

His output of two oratorios are pretty different in setting. Die Sch\u00f6pfung<\/em>, or The Creation, is based off biblical text including Genesis and Psalms; while his next oratorio, Die Jahreszeiten, <\/em>or The Seasons, is entirely secular.<\/p>\n

Now, Die Sch\u00f6pfung<\/em> is the better known and more widely performed and recorded of his two oratorios, I acquired Die Jahreszeiten<\/em> first early on in my classical music collection. This was in the mid 80s, and the set was a two cassette collection with the BBC Chorus & Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. Cassette tapes degrade pretty quickly with fungus growth in Singapore\u2019s humidity, so as soon as CDs became the fashionable thing from the late 80s onwards, I kept an eye for the CD recording of this work but could never find the CD equivalent of this cassette tape set.<\/p>\n

So, in the mid-90s, I settled for the work performed by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields<\/a> and Sir Neville Marriner that was also published on Philips CD releases. I thought it was hard to go wrong with this London-ensemble especially after picking up their recording of Messiah that I\u2019ve blogged here last week, and I wasn\u2019t disappointed.<\/p>\n

As for Die Sch\u00f6pfung, <\/em>one of the most highly regarded performances of this work was a live recording conducted by the legendary American conductor Leonard Bernstein<\/a> (above picture), and just a few years in 1986 before his death. I picked up the highlights disc from Deutsche Grammophone, and that was my only recording of the oratorio for many years.<\/p>\n

Strangely though, while I think Bernstein\u2019s recording is heavy and too ponderous for its own good these days, I was mesmerized by the energy in segments of the large choral numbers and returned to these numbers frequently as an alternative to Handel\u2019s choral works.<\/p>\n

As soon as I started subscribing to the eMusic service late last year, more recordings of Haydn\u2019s two oratorios were among my first picks, and I\u2019ve since acquired three more recordings: with Helmut Rilling and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart<\/a> in Die Jahreszeiten<\/em>, and both oratorios with Roger Norrington<\/a> (pictured here) and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (links here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And I have new favorites now: the Norrington performances are just terrific! There\u2019s zest aplenty in both the soloists and choirs blessed with great sound balance that puts the soloists center stage but not dominating the sound scape still. There\u2019s a pleasant reverberation throughout, courtesy of the concert hall. The recordings were made live, and there\u2019s welcomed sounds of audience applause at the end.<\/p>\n

Heck; these two performances would be easily at the top of the heap of all my vocal recordings collection were it not for the fact that there\u2019s a maddening amount of audience coughing throughout the performance. They ought to have shooed out the fellow who was coughing LOL.<\/p>\n

Maybe technology one day will make it possible to somehow remove those noises retroactively, but in the mean time, these two are amazing performances of that really show Haydn\u2019s style of music works. Recommended for listeners who one day get tired of listening to Handel.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my series of posts on large vocal classical works. I\u2019ve blogged about two of Handel\u2019s oratorios: this entry is about both of Haydn\u2019s oratorios. Haydn is also one of those lucky composers to have lived a long life.<\/p>\n

Read More Oratorios & Masses III<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-music","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-11-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}