HAYDN’S CREATION - ON DEMAND
Image Credit: © Helen White
“AND THERE WAS LIGHT”
In April 2023 we turned 10 and we celebrated with something extraordinary.
In association with Canberra International Music Festival, AHE were joined by Sydney Chamber Choir to present the Australian period-instrument premiere of Haydn’s monumental oratorio Creation.
Critically acclaimed and received by audiences with enormous enthusiasm, you can now view AHE’s live peformance, recorded in the City Recital Hall in Sydney in 2023.
PROGRAM
HAYDN
The Creation (Die Schöpfung)
ARTISTS:
Conductor
Roland Peelman
Orchestra
Australian Haydn Ensemble
Lead Violin
Skye McIntosh
Soprano
Alexandra Oomens
Tenor
Andrew Goodwin
Bass
James Ioelu
Choir
Sydney Chamber Choir
Chorusmaster
Sam Allchurch
Presented in partnership with the Canberra International Music Festival, AHE celebrated a special 10 year anniversary project with Haydn’s magnum opus.
Two hundred and twenty-four years (to the day!) after its private premiere, the Ensemble, Sydney Chamber Choir and three superb soloists united under the guest direction of Roland Peelman to perform The Creation (Die Schöpfung) as its first audience heard it.
This majestic oratorio, with its libretto drawn from the Books of Genesis and Psalms, with Milton’s Paradise Lost thrown in for good measure, has always been one of the composer’s most popular works, and in many ways represents the summit of his craft. His transition from a musical depiction of nothingness to the choir’s blazing “And there was light” is one of the great moments in music, and enough to raise the hair of believers and cosmologists alike. The Big Bang is a hard act to follow, but Haydn effortlessly nails it, sustaining over a hundred minutes of orchestral tone painting, monumental choruses and lilting arias.
Alexandra Oomans (soprano) and Andrew Goodwin (tenor), familiar to Sydney and Canberra audiences, were joined by exciting NZ bass-baritone James Ioelu. Together they took on the formidable roles of archangels and (fully clothed) Adam and Eve.
Haydn felt himself destined to take on the cosmic drama after hearing, in 1791, a London performance of Handel’s Messiah by forces of over a thousand. Die Schöpfung’s first public outing in 1799 mustered a 60 strong choir and a Mahlerian band of 120! But, apart from the opportunity to relive the Schwarzenberg Palace premiere without the mandatory noble lineage, there’s much to enjoy in the transparency of counterpoint and lively tempi afforded by this concert’s version.
Back in 1798, thirty police had to disperse the huge crowd of commoners who had gathered in the square outside hoping to catch distant strains of the new masterpiece - now you can experience this performance on demand.
Haydn’s Creation - Filmed by Oliver Miller and Wooden Picket Productions
