It took God six days and one day of rest to create the heavens and earth. Franz Joseph Haydn took two years to complete an expression of this week long process in the form of an Oratorio. According to Christine Ammer’s Music Dictionary an Oratorio is “a musical setting of a long text for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. The text is often based on the Bible… An oratorio is preformed without scenery, costumes, or action. The story is told through the music…” She later goes on to explain that most oratorios use a narrator to tell the story. This narrator is present throughout the piece and is used to connect the events to one another.

Haydn was born just outside of Vienna, Austria in 1732 and was but eighteen when Johann Sebastian Bach had died marking the end of the Baroque period (Ammer). He drew inspiration from himself and has been quoted saying, “I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original.” (BrainyQuote.com) He also exchanged several musical ideas from other composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach and was even the “tutor” of Ludwig van Beethoven. What ultimately compelled him to compose “The Creation” (also known as Die Schöpfung) happened during one of his year long visits to England. There he had witnessed performances of Handel’s oratorios including “The Messiah” and had been handed a libretto by Delaney. He began to translate the libretto into German when he returned to Vienna in 1795 (Carter).

He began working on the music for “The Creation” a year later in 1796. It wasn’t complete until 1798 and he was quoted saying “I spend much time over it, because I intend it to last a long time” (Wagner). Although it is nearly impossible for any work to be completely flawless it is obvious that Haydn had indeed put a lot of time into this piece. Every note and every ounce of silence seems as if it couldn’t have come at a better time. In essence this piece is practically perfection on paper, perfection preformed. The completion of this piece would be among his masterpieces and it was first preformed on March 19, 1799 in Vienna, Austria (Wagner).

Being that the numbers three and seven are typically thought of as biblical numbers Haydn had appropriately broken up “The Creation” into three smaller sections. A majority of the text is taken from the first few chapters of Genesis. The first section contains the chaos of the world before God had intervened and proceeds through the first three days. The second section starts on day four with the creation of living creatures. It continues to depict the creation of man and end with the chorus on a Hallelujah, celebrating God and his glorious work. The third part depicts the story of Adam and Eve throughout the whole section and ends on a praise for Jehovah and an Amen.

The “Representation of Chaos” is the first part within the first number of the Haydn’s “The Creation” and lasts roughly around six minutes. It is strictly instrumental and starts off with the orchestra on a loud C spread throughout the octaves. After the fermata on the first note it continues at a relatively slow speed expressing the emptiness that is the void. Each instrument struggles to get free of the void. There’s a constant lack of resolution amplifying the mood. If one did not know better it could be assumed that this section of “The Creation” was written by a Romantic or Post-Romantic composer. In some cases there are some Wagnerian techniques and even some one would assume Chopin wrote.

There tends to be a lot of chromatics and non-functional harmonies. The first melodic line presented begins as strictly chromatics in the strings beginning on F then proceeding to F#, G, and then Ab and G again. Although the Classic Period did not completely lack this it was uncommon especially before during Haydn’s time. There are several more instances where extensive chromatics exists. Even though Chopin wasn’t even born until a year after Haydn had died a unique characteristic of Chopin is begins in measure twenty-one. A chord is introduced and slowly but surely each note either goes up or down in chromatics. Again non-functional harmony is introduced but the effect it has in the piece is outstanding. It continues throughout the first number and isn’t duplicated again until sometime later when Chopin begins working on his piano pieces.