On April 29, 1798 – 221 years ago today – Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation was first performed before a star-studded, invitation-only audience at the Schwarzenberg Palace in Vienna. Getting older, or “when I’m 65.” An ugly confession. Eleven days ago, on April 18, 2019, I turned 65 years old. Don’t get me wrong; I am aware that growing older is generally preferable – generally – to the alternative. But it is, nevertheless, an ongoing shock to the system. Like many of us, I fully intended to be Peter Pan (Bob Panberg?): the eternal boy. And while one may not inaccurately assert that that is a fair appraisal of my emotional age, it cannot be said of my physical age. My eyes continue to weaken. My joints – crapped up by years in the gym – remind me of their ever-greater unhappiness by making ever more noise. My ability to dredge up names has become increasingly more difficult (although, curiously, dates and numbers come to me instantly). As my hairline beats an increasingly hasty retreat, thick, disgusting fly hairs on my shoulders and back continue to grow in ever greater profusion (this is so gross I don’t know where to […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Archive for The Creation
It was 219 years ago today – on March 19, 1799 – that Joseph Haydn’s epic, one hour and forty-five minute long oratorio The Creation (Die Schöpfung) received its public premiere in Vienna. Completed in 1798 when Haydn was 66 years old, The Creation is considered by many to be Haydn’s greatest work; truly, a masterpiece among masterpieces. That public premiere of The Creation on March 19, 1799 was one of the great events in the dazzling history of Viennese music. The performance was sold out far in advance, and such was the excitement preceding the performance that Haydn felt it necessary to request – on the posters announcing the premiere, no less – that the audience control itself and not applaud between the numbers (and thus encourage encores): “for otherwise, [wrote Haydn] the true connection between the various single parts, from the uninterrupted succession of which should proceed the effect of the whole, would necessarily be disturbed.” A critic in attendance from Leipzig’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung confirmed that the audience took Haydn’s injunction to heart; he reported that: “No one can imagine with what silence and attention the entire oratorio was heard – only gently interrupted at the most […]
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