Haydn: The Seasons, Hob.XXI:3 (3CDs, FARAO)

After the huge success that Haydn had with his oratorio The Creation, he was immediately asked to compose another work in the same genre. Baron van Swieten, the librettist of The Creation offered to translate The Seasons, a cycle of poems by the Scottish writer James Thomson, from English into German. The cooperation with the Viennese aristocrat was exhausting for the nearly seventy year old Haydn. When in addition van Swieten attempted to influence Haydn’s style of composition this became for a while the subject of some discord. “The Seasons has finished me off” Haydn said. “I shouldn’t have composed it.” In the entire oratorio nothing is to be heard of the bothersome history of the piece. Quite the opposite: Joseph Haydn cleverly manages to captivate his audience with a diversity of ideas and richness of sounds.