Photo: Christoph Müller-Girod
Read Jonathan Darligton’s programme notes for the upcoming 7th Philharmonic Concert on March 24th and 25th, featuring Solveig Kringelborn, Johannes Chum, Günter Papendell, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford, and the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
The last performance of the Creation that Haydn himself attended – indeed it was his last appearance in public -was given with an unusually small number of performers: unusual that is in that the general way of performing the piece was with a large chorus and orchestra. In bringing together the choir of Christchurch Oxford and reducing the orchestra to chamber-like proportions I have tried to recreate a little of the atmosphere of that last time Haydn himself heard his masterpiece. Amidst all the grandeur of the work, what affects me the most are those passages which reveal an intense rapport, a deeply moving intimacy with his creator which perhaps can only be achieved in the wisdom of declining years. At that last performance in his lifetime the old man, “the tears streaming down his pallid cheeks and as if overcome by the most violent emotions, raised his trembling arms to heaven, as if in prayer to the Father of Harmony”. It’s my hope that with our smaller but highly talented forces we can bring into sharp focus something of what Haydn intended when he wrote in reply to a letter praising the Creation. ‘…. A secret voice whispered to me: “There are in this world so few happy and contented people; sorrow and grief follow them everywhere; perhaps your labour will become a source in which the man bowed down by care, or burdened with business matters, will for a while find peace and rest.” How contemporary that sounds!
Posted by JKL, 20 March, 2010
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