Handel Creation

Impressed by the Handel works that he heard in London, Haydn felt the need to compose oratorios. First came Die Schöpfung (‘The Creation’), which met with resounding success; then Baron Gottfried van Swieten proposed to Haydn an arrangement of James Thomson’s poem ‘The Seasons’. Initially, Haydn was little attracted by the text, which deviates from the classic oratorio based on a religious text, but subsequently let himself be convinced. The result, for three soloists, chorus and orchestra, is a vast pictorial fresco of Nature that describes landscapes and the feelings that they arouse. For the first time, Philippe Herreweghe gives us his own vision of an oratorium by Haydn.

In the history of Bach’s musical legacy, the St John Passion has always stood in the shadow of the St Matthew Passion. The repercussions of the first revival of the St Matthew after Bach’s death, which took place in Berlin under the direction of the twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, decisively contributed to gaining it a unique position. But at the same time the great success of the St Matthew aroused a wider interest in Bach’s large-scale vocal works that initially benefited the St John Passion above all.
By Charles Johnston

In The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works, Great Courses favorite Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco Performances returns with an in-depth exploration of the solo piano works he considers to be among the most exceptional landmarks in the literature. The 23 works you’ll study represent the selections of an internationally respected composer and music historian, carefully chosen to highlight the most significant compositional and pianistic achievements in the solo piano repertoire.

Hummel was employed at the Esterházy court and later became music director in Weimar. During his lifetime his many piano compositions and chamber works attracted special attention. The oratorio Der Durchzug durchs rote Meer (The Passage Through the Red Sea) at first went unnoticed and continued to be labelled as “no longer extant” even last year in the new article in MGG, though the autograph has been in the holdings of the British Library in London for more than a hundred years.

François-André Danican Philidor started his musical career as a boy chorister in the Chapelle Royal at Versailles. Taught by Campra, his first motet was performed there in 1738. At the same time as he was building his career in music, Philidor acquired considerable ability as a chess player, and in the 1740s he could regularly be found playing opponents such as Voltaire and Rousseau in the Café de la Régence.