The Creation

The Creation (German: "Die Schöpfung") is an oratorio written 1796-1798 by Joseph Haydn, and considered by many to be his masterpiece. The oratorio depicts and celebrates the creation of the world as described in the biblical Book of Genesis.

Text

The text of The Creation has a long history. The three sources are Genesis, the Biblical book of Psalms, and John Milton's Genesis epic Paradise Lost. This material was fashioned into an oratorio libretto by one Lidley (possibly Linley). Lidley may have intended the libretto for the use of Handel; if so, Handel never set it to music. Haydn's host in England, Johann Peter Salomon, somehow obtained a copy of Lidley's libretto and gave it to Haydn. When Haydn returned to Vienna, he gave it to his friend and sponsor Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who produced a German version as well as a metrically-matched English retranslation. The work was published bilingually (1800) and is still performed in both languages today.

Related Topics:
Psalms - John Milton - Paradise Lost - Handel - Johann Peter Salomon - Vienna - Gottfried van Swieten - 1800

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Van Swieten was evidently not a fully-fluent speaker of English, and the English version of the libretto has given rise to criticism and various attempts at improvement. Indeed, the English version is sufficiently awkward that the work is sometimes performed in German even in English-speaking countries. The discussion below quotes the German text as representing van Swieten's best efforts, with fairly literal renderings of the German into English; for the full versions of both texts see the Links at the end of this article.

Related Topics:
English - German

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