Barucco / Wiener Singakademie / Ferlesch © Julia Wesely
Barucco / Wiener Singakademie / Ferlesch
Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten
Sunday
9
March
2025
19:00
Großer Saal
Presented by
Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft
The Seasons
Winter's icy rigidity and bleakness give way to the approaching spring: this is how Joseph Haydn's oratorio »The Seasons« begins, which Heinz Ferlesch will perform with his Ensemble Barucco and the young soloists Johanna Wallroth, Patrick Grahl and Great Talent Alexander Grassauer at the beginning of March. It was first heard in 1801 in the Schwarzenberg family's city palace on Mehlmarkt, today's Neuer Markt, in the private setting of the »Society of Associated Cavaliers«, musically interested aristocrats who played an important role in Viennese musical life. Baron van Swieten, who also wrote the libretto for the oratorio, founded the association. At his suggestion, Haydn composed this oratorio after the great success of his »Creation«, which, apart from the Christian interpretation at the end, is basically not religious, but depicts country life throughout the year and day - from the croaking of the frog in the swamp to thundering thunderstorms and horns blaring for the hunt to drunkenness at the time of the grape harvest. Although Haydn was already almost 70 years old at the time of composition and therefore had some difficulties, as he admits, Goethe's friend Carl Friedrich Zelter wrote to him in 1804: »You have not produced a work that shows your advanced age. Your seasons are a work of youthful vigor and old mastery. God commanded!«