Joseph Haydn 1732–1809
The Four Seasons Hob. XXI:3
Karolina Bengtsson soprano
Magnus Dietrich tenor
David Steffens bass
Thomas Guggeis conductor
7pm pre-concert talk in main auditorium by Andreas Bomba
buy tickets for this concert HERE
The Four Seasons was written not long after the very successful first performance of Haydn's Creation and are clearly very closely linked, spiritually.
Haydn found the texts, written by Baron van Swieten, based on the British author James Thomson's The Seasons difficult to set to music, especially ‘frog croaking’, but obviously enjoyed the words for the the final chorus: ‘Juhhe! Yay! The wine is here!’, ringing in the end of autumn, so much that he was a little tiddly when he wrote it remarking: ‘I call the final fugue the drunken fugue’.
These two wonderful oratorios have one thing in common: they celebrate the great gift and preciousness of the natural world, as well as singing about how wonderful they are - something the world is trying to do more today!
