by Daniel Hathaway

“It has sublime solos, jubilant choruses, and wonderful textures. And it’s very user-friendly,” Summit Choral Society music director Maria Bucoy-Calavan said in a recent telephone conversation. The subject was Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, to be performed by the Masterworks Chorale and Orchestra on Sunday, November 6 at 3:00 pm in Akron’s First Congregational Church. “It’s wonderful how Haydn is able to paint the creation story through music.”

According to the Scriptures, it took God only seven days to achieve that “glorious work.” It took Haydn a bit longer, but his efforts resulted in one of the most popular oratorios in circulation. The work was inspired by the composer’s visits to London in the early 1790s, where he heard George Frideric Handel’s oratorios for the first time, performed on a grand scale by large choruses. Haydn seemed to be particularly impressed by Israel in Egypt, with its graphic musical representations of the plagues visited on the Egyptians. [Read more…]