An Essay

By Kenneth Miller
Professor of Biology
Brown University

How, we wondered, might the experience of 21st-century audiences compare with that of audiences in Haydn’s time? Would audiences that know about the Big Bang and the Double Helix hear The Creation with a diminished sense of awe?

We put that question to Kenneth Miller, who has written, lectured and debated questions of science and religious belief. His answer: Not at all.

This essay was written for these performances in Providence and New Haven and appears here by permission of the author, which the Providence Singers gratefully acknowledges. Further distribution is not permitted without the author’s consent.

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In an age of science, does The Creation still matter?

Franz Josef Haydn wrote his great oratorio The Creation near the conclusion of the 18th century. Although the work of Charles Darwin was more than half a century in the future, scientific rationality had already begun to undermine many of the certainties in the core of the creation story that Haydn brought to life. The earth had long been displaced as the center of the universe, and the early stirrings of experimental science had begun to provide physical explanations for natural phenomena that, in ages past, had been taken for miraculous.

John Keats captured the unsettling feeling that nature was being robbed of spiritual mystery and meaning in these lines from his final book of poems:

Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine –
Unweave a rainbow. . .

Lamia, II, 1820

If Keats could be driven toward melancholy merely by Newton’s explanation for the optics of the rainbow, one can only wonder what dark lines he might have written in response to Darwin’s work on the origin of species. Although Keats and Haydn did not live to see a world in which evolution would displace the Eden of his oratorio, we most certainly have. Does this mean that today’s scientific worldview requires us to regard The Creation as a cultural museum piece, a work – however beautiful – that has nothing to say to the modern world?

Not at all. Haydn’s narrative, inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost, addresses themes that, if anything, have been made more relevant by today’s science. To Haydn, evidence of the Creator’s magnificence was to be found in heaven and on earth, in the stars that lit the nighttime sky, and in the majesty of our planet’s landscape. Two centuries later, what has happened to that vision? In space, our horizons have been expanded to reveal a universe far more intriguing than even the grandest artistic visions of the 17th and 18th centuries. By the same token, although the biological sciences may have provided an answer to how living species arise, they have also shown us that our own bodies, our own cells are universes in themselves. So remarkable is the stuff of which we are made, that we can say with confidence that a new age of exploration is just beginning as we take our first halting steps into the landscape of the human genome.

Against this backdrop, the sense of magnificence that is manifest in The Creation is more relevant than ever. The questions it addresses – our place in the universe, our relationship with eternity, our wonder at the grandeur of life itself – are more profound today than they were 200 years ago, and in many ways, they carry a greater sense of urgency. In the final analysis, it is only in an age of scientific discovery that the artistry of Haydn’s work can be fully appreciated, taking center stage in the grand play of creation that continues to amaze and delight our senses and our minds.

Program Notes

German or English?

These performances of The Creation will be sung in English.

Purists might argue that the German text used by Haydn should be preferred as the original, but the issue is not quite so clear-cut.

Haydn recognized English as the language of oratorio. He attended a 1784 performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt in Westminster Abbey, marking the centenary of the composer’s birth, and is said to have burst into tears at the conclusion. He remarked of Handel, “He is the master of us all!”

On a later trip to London, Haydn acquired an English libretto. Although Haydn used Baron Gottfried van Swieten’s German translation to compose Die Schöpfung, van Swieten restored the English text, laying it in under the German. Haydn included both languages in his self-published full score.

The 1991 Oxford edition, which the Singers used in preparing these concerts, honors Haydn’s own practice of including both languages, the English laid under the German. It also eliminates two centuries of well-intended “improvements” by restoring the original – if somewhat cumbersome – English of the libretto.

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The Creation  (Die Schöpfung)

Franz Joseph Haydn
(b. Rohrau, Austria, 1732; d. Vienna, 1809)

Franz Joseph Haydn sustained a long and fruitful career. Having painstakingly mastered his art and developed a distinctive style within the musical language of his day, the composer wrote his greatest compositions during his final decade of productivity, when he was well past the age of sixty. A number of spectacular public triumphs crowned his last years. The greatest attended his oratorio The Creation.

Haydn completed this work in 1798, but the story of how he came to write it begins some time earlier, during his famous visits to England, in 1791-92 and again 1794-95. During his London sojourns, Haydn considered the possibility of writing an oratorio, a type of composition that has long enjoyed great popularity in England. He even found a libretto for such a work, a text that had been fashioned years earlier by an English poet named Lidley, reportedly for Handel’s use, embellishing the creation story given in the Book of Genesis. Haydn eventually decided that he was not sufficiently comfortable with the English language to set this text to music, but he took the libretto with him when he returned to Austria, in August 1795.

In Vienna, Haydn showed Lidley’s text to Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a highly cultivated Austrian nobleman, a part-time composer, and occasional poet. Swieten had some experience in adapting verses for musical purposes, and he now agreed to render Lidley’s libretto into German. Haydn spent much of 1797 setting his translation to music.

The Creation was performed for the first time on April 29, 1798, in Vienna. A witness wrote of the event: “[I] can assure you that I never saw anything like it in my life. The flower of cultivated society, both national and foreign, was gathered there. The best possible orchestra; Haydn himself at their head; the most perfect silence; and the most scrupulous attention; a favorable hall; the greatest precision on the part of the performers; an atmosphere of devotion and respect on the part of the entire assembly.”

The Creation proved immediately successful and soon became the most popular and famous of Haydn’s works. It was performed repeatedly, both in Vienna and other capitals, during the last decade of the composer’s life and brought many honors to Haydn during his declining years. An especially moving tribute came with a performance of The Creation given in Vienna in March 1808. On this occasion, the aged and frail composer was carried into the auditorium on an armchair. One account relates that “his entrance into the hall, to the sound of trumpets and timpani, was received by the numerous assemblage and greeted with the joyful cry, ‘Long live Haydn!’ ” Further demonstrations at length brought the composer to tears.

The Creation alternates excerpts from the first chapter of Genesis with verses from Milton’s Paradise Lost and several psalms. The juxtaposition of these different materials is reflected in the broad musical structure of the work. Haydn presents the biblical account of earth’s creation in recitatives for solo soprano, tenor or bass. Swieten, following Milton’s example, gave to these parts the names of the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael, but they serve merely as narrators. The only dramatis personae represented in the score are Adam and Eve, who appear in the last of the oratorio’s three sections. Interspersed between the verses of Genesis, those from Paradise Lost and the psalms provide gloss and commentary on the comparatively terse biblical story. Their more colorful language invites more elaborate musical treatment, and Haydn provides this with a wealth of melodic ideas and musical textures.

The oratorio opens with an orchestral prologue, the “Representation of Chaos.” It is one of the most remarkable passages by Haydn or any other eighteenth-century composer, with strange chromatic harmonies, abrupt shifts in volume, irregular phrase lengths, and lack of melodic continuity serving to portray primeval disorder. This is, however, only a portrayal of chaos, and a very Classical-period one at that. Haydn was no anarchist, even in conveying an impression of anarchy, and the music here is wrought with consummate skill and control.

The prelude establishes a premise that Haydn will pursue in a more specific and detailed manner during many of the vocal numbers that follow. This is the use of suggestive musical figuration to “illustrate” various aspects of the text, the type of composing often described as “tone painting.” A striking instance of this occurs in the initial recitative. Here Haydn suggests primordial darkness with hushed voices and somber harmonies, but God’s creation of light brings a burst of tonal radiance. Further examples can be heard throughout the oratorio: in the brief storm music during the second bass recitative; in the magnificent sunrise music; in tempestuous, billowing waves, galloping horses, and numerous other details. Of course, Haydn’s music is not merely illustrative. Rather, its descriptive details are imbedded in a fabric of melody, harmony, and counterpoint that command admiration quite apart from their pictorial purpose.

All this describes somewhat the first two parts of The Creation. The third, however, is a bit different. Here there is no narration from Genesis, nor any of the vivid “tone painting” we have heard thus far. Instead, Haydn imagines a stylized tableau of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Much of this portion of the score is cast as a duet for these characters, as they commend the beauty of the world God has made and the bliss of matrimony. The choir affirms their sentiments in choruses of joyous praise, the last of which closes the work.

The Creation is surely the most refreshing of the great oratorios. Its tone is ever pastoral and contented, its few dark moments fleeting and incidental. There is no serpent in Haydn’s Eden; the error of knowledge and the fall from grace are mentioned only in passing, and as a dim possibility rather than a terrible reality. H. C. Robbins Landon, the renowned Haydn scholar, notes that the work’s optimistic outlook mirrored that of its era. “Haydn is the true son of the Enlightenment,” Landon states, “[because he expresses] the idea that things will end well. The Creation was such a great success in the 1790s because it confirmed what that century had been saying all along.” He might have added that it speaks still to our sense that the world was once, and might yet be, a place of purity, beauty, and harmony.

Libretto

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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Part One

Libretto

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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15.  

Recitative (Gabriel)
And God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

16.  

Aria (Gabriel)
On mighty pens uplifted soars the eagle aloft and cleaves the sky in swiftest flight to the blazing sun. His welcome bids to morn the merry lark, and cooing calls the tender dove his mate. From every bush and grove resound the nightingale’s delightful notes. No grief affected yet her breast, nor to a mournful tale were tuned her soft, enchanting lays.

17.  

Recitative (Raphael)
And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, and God blessed them saying, Be fruitful all and multiply! Ye winged tribes, be multiplied and sing on every tree! Multiply ye finny tribes and fill each watery deep! Be fruitful, grow and multiply! And in your God and Lord rejoice!

18.  

Recitative (Raphael)
And the angels struck their immortal harps and the wonders of the fifth day sang.

19.  

Trio and Chorus
Most beautiful appear with verdure young adorned the gently sloping hills. Their narrow, sinuous veins distill in crystal drops the fountain fresh and bright. In lofty circles plays and hovers through the sky the cheerful host of birds. And in the flying whirl the glittering plumes are dyed as rainbows by the sun. See flashing through the wet in thronged swarms the fry on thousand ways around. Upheaved from the deep the immense Leviathan sports on the foaming wave. How many are Thy works O God! Who may their numbers tell? The Lord is great and great is His might; His glory lasts forever.

Scene 2

20.  

Recitative (Raphael)
And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind; cattle and creeping thing, and beasts of the earth after their kind.

21.  

Recitative (Raphael)
Straight opening her fertile womb, the earth obeyed the word and teemed creatures numberless in perfect forms and fully grown. Cheerful roaring stands the tawny lion. In sudden leaps the flexible tiger appears. The nimble stag bears up his branching head. With flying mane and fiery look, impatient neighs the sprightly steed. The cattle in herds already seeks his food on fields and meadows green. And over the ground are spread, as plants, the fleecy, meek and bleating flock. Unnumbered as the sands in whirl arose the host of insects. In long dimensions creeps with sinuous trace the worm.

22.  

Aria (Raphael)
Now heaven in all her glory shone; earth smiles in all her rich attire. The room of air with fowl is filled; the water swelled by shoals of fish; by heavy beasts the ground is trod. But all the work was not complete. There wanted yet that wondrous being that grateful should God’s power admire, with heart and voice His goodness praise.

23.  

Recitative (Uriel)
And God created man in His own image. In the image of God created He him. Male and female created He them. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

24.  

Recitative (Uriel)
In native worth and honor clad, with beauty, courage, strength adorned, to heaven erect and tall he stands – a man, the lord and king of nature all. The large and arched front sublime of wisdom deep declares the seat, and in his eyes with brightness shines the soul, the breath and image of his God. With fondness leans upon his breast the partner for him formed, a woman fair and graceful spouse. Her softly smiling virgin looks, of flowery spring the mirror, bespeak him love and joy and bliss.

25.  

Recitative (Raphael)
And God saw everything that He had made; and behold, it was very good; and the heavenly choir in song divine thus closed the sixth day.

26.  

Chorus and Trio
Achieved is the glorious work; the Lord beholds it and is pleased. In lofty strains let us rejoice! Our song let be the praise of God! On Thee each living soul awaits; from Thee, O Lord, they beg their meat. Thou openest Thy hand and sated all they are. But as to them Thy face is hid, with sudden terror they are struck. Thou takest their breath away; they vanish into dust. Thou lettest Thy breath go forth again, and life with vigor fresh returns. Revived earth unfolds new force and new delights. Achieved is the glorious work. Our song let be the praise of God! He sole on high exalted reigns, alleluia. Glory to His name forever. Alleluia!