History of franz joseph haydn the creation

Composed: 1797

Length: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Orchestration: 2 solo sopranos, solo contralto, solo tenor, 2 solo basses, chorus (SATB), 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, organ, fortepiano, timpani, and strings

First Los Angeles Philharmonic performance: April 14, 1960, Georg Solti conducting, with soprano Claire Watson, tenor Leopold Simoneau, bass-baritone Donald Gramm, and the Roger Wagner Chorale

Haydn was a deeply religious man, and Die Schöpfung (The Creation) is his personal statement of faith.

He was a life-long Catholic, having received his early musical education as a chorister at St. Stephen's, Vienna's main cathedral. According to his biographer Georg August Greisinger, who interviewed Haydn on several occasions, "In general, his devotion was not of the gloomy, always suffering sort, but rather cheerful and reconciled, and in this character, moreover, he wrote all his church music." There are few works o