`Often, as I struggled with obstacles of every kind opposed to my works - often, as my physical and mental powers sank and I had difficulty in keeping to my chosen course - an inner voice whispered to me: `There are so few happy and contented men here below - on every hand care and sorrow pursue them - perhaps your work may some day be a source from which men laden with anxieties and burdened with affairs may derive a few moments of rest and refreshment'."
Thus did the 66-year-old Franz Josef Haydn, in a letter written not long after the first performance of his gigantic oratorio The Creation in 1799, set out his typically modest artistic credo. He would doubtless have been shocked to discover that at the end of the 20th century The Creation remains a source, not merely of rest and refreshment, but of inspiration to many of his fellows. It was Haydn's massive work which, for example, the fledgling Dun Laoghaire Choral Society performed when it gave its first public performance at Monkstown Parish Church in 1982; and at the National Concert Hall next Saturday the choir will celebrate the work's 200th anniversary with another performance. This time, the solo organ accompaniment will be replaced by a 50-strong orchestra composed of players from the National Symphony Orchestra led by Alan Smale, with soloists Majella Cullagh, Emmanuel Lawler and Philip O'Reilly, under the baton of Mark Armstrong. "We won't have the 400 performers who were present for the first performance," says Armstrong, "but small is beautiful in choral music these days, anyhow, and we're getting a terrific vibe from this music."
From the spooky special effects of Haydn's opening depiction of chaos to the tremendous climax as the choir proclaims, on a soul-stirring C-major chord, "And there was light", The Creation is, he adds, a piece which gains an irresistible momentum in performance. "I'm aiming to move through it like a whirlwind so that the audience is carried along too. The recitatives need careful handling if they're not to get foggy and bogged down; but the recitative/aria, recitative/aria form is an operatic structure, anyhow, so it has an inherent drama."
For added accessibility the performance will be in English - or, at least, the slightly skewed form of English in which the libretto was originally written. "It's doggerel, really," admits Armstrong. "Sort of Milton-esque doggerel, though." There is undoubtedly a perverse delight to be had from lines such as: "How pleasing is of fragrant bloom the smell"; but by the time Adam, Eve and chorus join forces for the final chorus, with its transcendent expression of innocence, joy and pure faith, it's a fair bet that the smiles will be gone, and the tissues will be out. Of course, there is a precedent in music history for tears, too: at a performance of the work in 1808, the 76-year-old Haydn became so emotional that he had to be carried out of the hall in a chair.
Dun Laoghaire Choral Society will perform Haydn's The Creation at the National Con- cert Hall on Saturday, April 10th at 8 p.m. with soloists Majella Cullagh, Emmanuel Lawler and Philip O'Reilly, and the Dun Laoghaire Choral Society Orchestra led by Alan Smale and conducted by Mark Armstrong.
