Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Haydn's Creation is one of the great masterpieces of the classical period. This absorbing and original account of the work provides an indispensable guide for the concert-goer, performer and student alike. The author places the work within the oratorio tradition, and contrasts the theological and literary character of the English libretto with the Viennese milieu of the first performances. The complete text is provided in both German and English versions as a useful reference point for discussion of the design of the work, the musical treatment of the words, including questions of Haydn's pictorialism, and a detailed examination of the different movement types employed. The book also contains a brief history of the reception of the work with appendices of notes on the changing performance traditions and selected extracts from critical accounts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. vii)
• 1 Background (p. 1)
• The Viennese oratorio (p. 1)
• The English oratorio (p. 3)
• Haydn's career (p. 4)
• Haydn's oratorios (p. 5)
• 2 Theology (p. 9)
• Religion in Georgian England (p. 10)
• Religion in Catholic Austria (p. 15)
• Haydn's religion (p. 16)
• 3 The libretto (p. 19)
• Authorship (p. 19)
• Sources, structure and revision (p. 20)
• Literary character (p. 24)
• Translation and adaptation (p. 26)
• 4 Composition, performance and reception (p. 31)
• Genesis and composition (p. 31)
• First performances in Vienna (p. 35)
• Publication (p. 36)
• First London performances (p. 39)
• Early Paris performances (p. 40)
• First American performances (p. 41)
• Critical reception (p. 42)
• 5 Design of the work (p. 47)
• Overall plan (p. 47)
• Musical unity (p. 49)
• Text and musical treatment (p. 52)
• 6 Musical analysis (p. 65)
• Secco recitative (p. 65)
• Accompanied recitative (p. 66)
• Arias and ensembles (p. 69)
• Choruses (p. 78)
• Orchestral movements (p. 82)
• The Hymn (p. 84)
• 7 Excerpts from critical essays (p. 89)
• Carl Friedrich Zelter (1802) (p. 89)
• William Gardiner (1811) (p. 93)
• Thomas Busby (1819) (p. 94)
• Edward Taylor[?] (1834) (p. 95)
• P.L.A. (1846) (p. 96)
• George Alexander Macfarren (1854) (p. 96)
• Hugo Wolf (1885) (p. 98)
• Paul Dukas (1904) (p. 100)
• Heinrich Schenker (1926) (p. 100)
• Donald Francis Tovey (1934) (p. 103)
• Karl Geiringer (1963) (p. 106)
• Charles Rosen (1972) (p. 107)
• Appendix 1 Performance practice (p. 109)
• Venue (p. 109)
• Language (p. 109)
• Vocal soloists (p. 110)
• Choral forces (p. 110)
• Orchestral forces (p. 111)
• Continuo realization (p. 113)
• Tempo (p. 114)
• Embellishment (p. 115)
• Standard ornaments (p. 115)
• Dynamics and articulation (p. 116)
• Appendix 2 Editions currently available and numbering of movements (p. 118)
• Notes (p. 121)
• Bibliography (p. 129)
• Index (p. 132)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

These three handbooks on individual choral masterworks are all " studies written by recognized experts reporting the current state of knowledge about each work. They are aimed, courageously, at " but are especially valuable to practising musicologists not au courant with the cutting edge of recent research. Burrows has published extensively on Handel's autographs, performing materials, and performances themselves (five citations in his " plus six articles listed in RILM). His handbook is a highly readable overview of Handel's work in Germany and Italy, of the oratorios from 1732 to 1741, " of Messiah, with particular emphasis on Handel's collaboration with Charles Jennens including quotations from pertinent letters, and the subsequent history of Messiah to the present day. It will help readers who want to understand essential distinctions among the different versions of the work cherished by modern-day conductors, though the volume's use to US performers would be enhanced by critical comments on the G. Schirmer and Carl Fischer/Coopersmith editions along the lines of those provided for the Tobin and Watkins Shaw editions. Burrows's comments on " (13 pages) and " (7 pages) should be read by all performers of Messiah, and his comments on Handel's word-setting should discourage anyone from tampering with Handel's linguistic idiosyncracies. Burrows has succeeded in updating Jens Peter Larsen's seminal Handel's Messiah: Origins, Composition, Sources (2nd ed., 1972) without one-upping or superseding it. Butt, (University of California, Berkeley), one of the younger generation of Bach scholars, brings impressive credentials to his task. An organist, he is also author of Bach Interpretation (CH, Feb'91) and a 1991 article: " His handbook demonstrates an ability to relate solid musical analysis to theology and rhetoric in ways easily grasped. This skill is most clearly demonstrated in the sections " and " Other sections deal with topics covered in all three handbooks: genesis and purpose, reception history, text and music. Surprisingly, Butt does not deal in detail with Smend's edition of the Mass in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. An appendix comparing it to the old Bach-Ausgabe, spinoffs currently in use, and with the edition (as yet unpublished) prepared by Joshua Rifkin for his revolutionary recording of 1982 would have enhanced the practical use of a volume that, in any event, is " reading for performers and scholars alike. Temperley brings a mature viewpoint to his undertaking; he was already an expert on 19th-century English instrumental music and church music before 1983, when he began publishing articles on The Creation. Noting that the work " Temperley develops an unusually rich discussion of the libretto, growing out of his own research and that of Edward Olleson, concluding that the English text in Haydn's published score " Given Temperley's expertise, his edition of the piano/vocal score (Peters, 1988) should be a boon to any one performing The Creation in English. Likewise, the appendix on performance practice, based on A. Peter Brown's recent seminal study, is an invaluable introduction. Unlike Burrows and Butts, Temperley includes excerpts from critical essays (evoking the now-defunct " series), including Schenker's technical, illuminating explication of Haydn's representation of " (1926). Temperley also provides an annotated list of editions currently available, another boon to performers. Like Burrows and Butts he writes lucidly in a style accessible to generalists yet without dilution of content. All three volumes are highly recommended to public and academic libraries at all levels. P. G. Swing emeritus, Swarthmore College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Nicholas Temperley also discusses the changing performance traditions of this work and surveys the critical reception throughout its history. In a useful appendix he quotes from the most significant critical literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.