CREATION (Haydn)

Composer: Franz Joseph Haydn

The tune CREATION is taken from the chorus “The Heavens Are Telling” from the well known oratorio The Creation (1798) by Franz Joseph Haydn (b. Rohrau, Austria, 1732; d. Vienna, Austria, 1809). Haydn's life was relatively uneventful, but his artistic legacy was truly astounding. He began his musical career as a choirboy in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, spent some years in that city making a precarious living as a music teacher and composer, and then served as music director for the Esterhazy family from 1761 to 1790. Haydn became a most productive and widely respected composer of symphonies, chamber music, and piano sonatas. In his retirement years he took two extended tours to England, which resulted in his "London" symphonies and (because of G. F. Handel's influence) in oratorios. Haydn's church music includes six great Masses and a few original hymn tunes. Hymnal editors have also arranged hymn tunes from various themes in Haydn's music.

William Gardiner (PHH 111) altered CREATION to long-meter double in 1812; it was published in its present form in 1848 in Mason and Webb's The National Psalmist. CREATION is essentially a bar form (AABB') with a harmony well-suited to part singing; take it on a half-note pulse.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

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