Great Bend Chorale: Haydn's 'The Creation'
$20 ($16 senior/military)
Tess Altiveros, soprano
Will Gardner, tenor
Charles Robert Stephens, bass
Matthew Melendez, conductor
Franz Joseph Haydn – The Creation
The almost childlike cheerfulness of Haydn’s music and its fusion of exuberance, originality, classical elegance, and intellectual power placed Haydn far and away above the level of all except Mozart amongst his contemporaries. He was hailed as a genius throughout Europe, admired and revered by the public and by his peers. Mozart said, "Haydn alone has the secret both of making me smile and of touching my innermost soul." Even Napoleon, on capturing Vienna, immediately ordered a guard of honor to be placed round Haydn’s house.
The Creation represents a considerable development over its Handelian predecessors, and Haydn’s bold use of orchestral color, adventurous harmony, and rhythmic and melodic inventiveness, as well as the work’s strong unity, bring the subject to life with an almost operatic vividness and power. This performance will feature the combined forces of the Great Bend Chorale and Youth Chorale.