The heart beats consistently, but will skip a beat when beauty is beheld.
Picture St Wenceslas cathedral, splendid in neo-gothic finery: all blue ceilings and stars, painted flowers adorning the walls. Upon the ebony-esque dark pews and hastily assembled folding chairs crowding the central aisle sat the coated audience recently hobbled in from the cold. Facing them are orchestra and choir, black tailed, black jacketed, black polyester topped, their focus upon the imminent creation of the Creation. And staring down upon all assembled is John Sarkander, the piercing gaze from his emotionless, unmoving brown skull – tortured saint, local boy and golden reliquary inhabitant.
And then the music begins; Haydn's masterpiece, the culmination of fluid thought, of majestically crafted themes within dynamic forms. With The Creation he fully demonstrated his capacity to form in the mind a painted landscape to convey vigorous ideas, but in so doing moved the heart and appealed to the spirit.
The first promising outing in the local Autumn Festival of Sacred Music, the cathedral's echoing shell generously allowed each note of each phrase sufficient reverb to blend and combine. The Czech Philharmonic Choir, South Bohemian Philharmonia under direction of Hungarian István Dénes and accomplished soloists soprano Michaela Šrůmová, tenor Jaroslav Březina and ponytailed Slovakian bass Martin Gurbal melded into the firey sword of Haydn's deft handywork (see Youtube above – very similar, although our performance was arguably better and the libretto was German). For the incidental solo in the last movement the alto crept up on the soloists like she'd missed the bus and the conductor played the recitatives on what looked like a bontempi organ.
It was after hearing some of Handel's works performed forcefully with massed ranks of musicians and choristers that Haydn decided to bring The Creation into being. After two year's gestation, it immediately revealed itself to be an extraordinary piece of music, of the sort that demonstrates what great heights man is capable of attaining. In response to rapturous applause the ageing Haydn with characteristic modesty pointed upwards – "Not from me—everything comes from up there!" In response to our performance, a 10-minute standing ovation, the only reaction possible (without the usual whooping and hollaring that is all-pervasive elsewhere) and a dumbfounded homage not only to performers but also to the composer.
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