A performance of Haydn's oratorio The Creation given last Saturday in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Harry
Christophers conducts a distinguished line-up of soloists and the acclaimed BBC Singers in the greatest of all Haydn's choral works, which includes the celebrated chorus: The Heavens Are
Telling. Haydn's vision of the mystery of the creation to the emergence of man is loosely based on Milton's Paradise Lost.
During his visits to London Haydn had been greatly moved by a performance of Handel's Messiah, which had suggested to Haydn that he should compose an oratorio himself. In 1795, towards the end of his second visit, the impresario
Salomon offered Haydn an English text which had been compiled from Milton's
Paradise Lost before the death of Handel but never set to music. Haydn took the text back to Vienna and began to work. " Never was I so pious as when composing The Creation. I knelt down every day and prayed God to strengthen me for my work." The first performance was given privately in Vienna in 1798 and the work was performed publicly the following year. In 1800 the work received its first London performances in rival productions at
Covent Garden and at the King's Theatre. Nancy Argenta (soprano), Nicholas Sears (tenor), Michael George (bass), BBC
Singers, BBC Philharmonic, conductor Harry Christophers Haydn The Creation