Repertoire

Franz Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten, oratorio, Hob. XXI:3 (1799-1801)
Libretto by Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803), based on The Seasons by James Thomson

ARTISTS

Lina Johnson, soprano (Hanne)
Tilman Lichdi, tenor (Lukas)
Matthias Winckhler, baritone (Simon)
La Capella Nacional de Catalunya
Lluís Vilamajó, preparation of the vocal ensemble
Le Concert des Nations
Lina Tur Bonet, concertino
Jordi Savall, conductor

Programme

A successor of Handel in the oratorio genre, Franz Joseph Haydn was a symphonic choral master par excellence and represented a turning point between Bach’s Baroque oratorio and a new, romantic approach, which, with Mendelssohn, was to take the genre to new heights. Less well known than The Creation, The Seasons is a sumptuous, densely textured work that Haydn premiered at the palace of Prince Schwarzenberg in Vienna in 1801, by which time he was sixty-nine. As with his previous oratorio, he used texts by Gottfried van Swieten in all four parts of this magnificent work.

With the support of the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Culture.
Financed jointly by the European Union.
With the financial support of the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Occitanie.