08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 1 Friday and Saturday Evenings, August 21 –22, 2015, at 7:30 m Pre-concert lecture by Elaine Sisman on Friday, August 21 at 6 :15 a in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse r g Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra o r Louis Langrée , Conductor M|M P Sarah Tynan , Soprano Andrew Staples , Tenor M|M e Brindley Sherratt , Bass M|M h Concert Chorale of New York T James Bagwell , Director HAYDN The Creation (1796 –98) This program is approximately one hour and 50 minutes long and will be performed without intermission. M|M Mostly Mozart debut (Program continued) Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Fortepiano courtesy of Dongsok Shin Avery Fisher Hall 08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 2 Mostly Mozart Festival The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon and Howard Solomon, Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Chris and Bruce Crawford, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly Mozart. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts. Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and zabars.com MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center United Airlines is a Supporter of Lincoln Center WABC-TV is a Supporter of Lincoln Center “Summer at Lincoln Center” is supported by Diet Pepsi Time Out New York is a Media Partner of Summer at Lincoln Center Join the conversation: #LCMozart We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. 08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 3 Mostly Mozart Festival HAYDN: The Creation (1796 –98) m PART I a Introduction: The Representation of Chaos r Recitative with Chorus: In the beginning g Aria: Now vanish before the holy beams Recitative: And God made the firmament o Chorus with Soprano Solo: The marv ’lous work beholds amaz ’d r Recitative: And God said: Let the waters P Aria: Rolling in foaming billows Recitative: And God said: Let the earth bring forth grass e Aria: With verdure clad the fields appear Recitative: And the heavenly host h Chorus: Awake the harp T Recitative: And God said: Let there be lights Recitative: In splendor bright is rising now Chorus with Solos: The heavens are telling the glory of God PART II Recitative: And God said: Let the waters bring forth Aria: On mighty pens uplifted soars Recitative: And God created great whales Recitative: And the angels struck their immortal harps Trio: Most beautiful appear Chorus with Solos: The Lord is great, and great his might Recitative: And God said: Let the earth bring forth Recitative: Strait opening her fertile womb Aria: Now heav ’n in fullest glory shone Recitative: And God created man Aria: In native worth and honor clad Recitative: And God saw ev ’rything Chorus: Achieved is the glorious work Trio: On thee each living soul awaits Chorus: Achieved is the glorious work PART III Recitative: In rosy mantle appears Duet and Chorus: By thee with bliss, O bounteous Lord Recitative: Our duty we performed now Duet: Graceful consort! At thy side Recitative: O happy pair Chorus: Sing the Lord ye voices all! 08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 4 Mostly Mozart Festival Welcome to Mostly Mozart I am pleased to welcome you to the 49th Mostly Mozart Festival, our annual celebration of the innovative and inspiring spirit of our namesake composer. This summer, in addition to a stellar roster of guest conductors and soloists, we are joined by composer-in-residence George Benjamin, a leading contemporary voice whose celebrated opera Written on Skin receives its U.S. stage premiere. This landmark event is the first in a series of staged opera works to be presented in a new partnership with the New York Philharmonic. Written on Skin continues our tradition of hearing Mozart afresh in the context of the great music of our time. Under the inspired baton of Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra delights this year with the Classical repertoire that is its specialty, in addition to Beethoven’s joyous Seventh Symphony and Haydn’s triumphant Creation. Guest appearances include maestro Cornelius Meister making his New York debut; Edward Gardner, who also leads the Academy of Ancient Music in a Mendelssohn program on period instruments; and Andrew Manze with violinist Joshua Bell in an evening of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann. Other preeminent soloists include Emanuel Ax, Matthias Goerne, and festival newcomers Sol Gabetta and Alina Ibragimova, who also perform intimate recitals in our expanded Little Night Music series. And don’t miss returning favorite Emerson String Quartet and artists-in-residence the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as invigorating pre-concert recitals and lectures, a panel discussion, and a film on Haydn. With so much to choose from, we invite you to make the most of this rich and splendid season. I look forward to seeing you often. Jane Moss Ehrenkranz Artistic Director 08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 5 Mostly Mozart Festival By Peter A. Hoyt t o Whereas the Book of Genesis portrays the creative acts of a solitary h deity, Haydn’s musical reworking of the account adds three s archangels (performed by vocal soloists, who provide narration and poetic reflections), a host of jubilant angels (represented by the chorus), p and—very briefly—some non-singing demons. Haydn’s inventive use a of the orchestra introduces additional characterizations that typically n appear before being explained in words. These musical depictions include portrayals of the boisterous sea, various types of weather, S and a wide range of animals. Particularly striking is Haydn’s ability to delineate such seemingly intangible concepts as the primordia l chaos that precedes God’s intervention, the first beams of light, and the wonder of the first mortals encountering a newly created world. Cast in three asymmetrical parts, The Creation begins with the four days spent fashioning the heavens, the earth, and the plants. The second section depicts the fifth and sixth days, in which sentient life appears—here are animals capable of feeling and, with the appearance of man, reason. The conclusion models a fitting use of that reason as Adam and Eve survey Creation and join the angels in praising its Creator. —Copyright © 2015 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. 08-21 MMFO Creation_Gp 3.qxt 8/12/15 2:51 PM Page 6 Mostly Mozart Festival I Note on the Program By Peter A. Hoyt m The Creation , Hob. XXI:2 (1796 –98) a JOSEPH HAYDN r Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria g Died May 31, 1809, in Vienna o r Approximate length:One hour and 50 minutes P In 1795, during Haydn’s second visit to England, the composer was given a libretto based on the biblical account of Creation. The manuscript apparently e did not identify its author, but Haydn believed that it had been prepared for h (but not used by) George Frideric Handel, who had been writing oratorios t in London and Dublin in the 1730s and 1740s. The libretto was therefore approximately 50 years old, and it incorporated passages from English n publications that were older still, including John Milton’s Paradise Lost of o 1667, psalms from several 17th-century British sources, and the King James Bible of 1611. The language is at times archaic, as when it says e that the praise of the Lord “shall last for aye.” t o Despite the age of its text and sources, Haydn’s finished composition has often been associated with the 18th century’s most progressive philosophica l N ideals. Historians have cited The Creation as representing the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that emphasized empirical observation and reason over revelation and tradition as the basis for knowledge, spirituality, and politics. Enlightenment philosophers did not necessarily reject religion, but they questioned its irrational aspects, as when in 1784 Immanuel Kant criticized the church’s traditional “dogmas and formulas.” Similarly, in 1776 Thomas Jefferson attacked the class distinctions that empowered Europe’s aristocracies by asserting that “all men are created equal.” The influence of the Enlightenment on The Creation has been attributed, in part, to Haydn’s collaborator in Vienna, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who amended the English libretto. He also prepared a German translation that, by preserving the prosody of the original, allowed Haydn to create vocal lines that suited both languages. This aristocratic musical amateur had served Austria’s “enlightened despot,” Joseph II, during the latter’s unsuccessful attempts to reform his sprawling domain. It has seemed plausible that in preparing the libretto, van Swieten still adhered to Josephinian principles. It is, however, Haydn’s opening musical sequence that makes The Creation seem an Enlightenment statement. The work begins with an orchestral illustration of an inchoate cosmos and progresses to the triumphant first appearance of light. Haydn’s depiction of the luminous dispellin g the dark has been compared to reason overthrowing ignorance and superstition.