Cappella Coloniensis - SACD

After finishing the oratorio version of his Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross in 1796, Haydn was ready: he took up work on the “Creation” and had finished the piece by 1798. Even during the rehearsals for the first performance on the 30th April in Vienna, which was exclusively for invited, noble guests, the musicians reported “ the delights of this musical work, so exceptional and never heard before [...], that news of it spread through the entire dity like wild fire and expectations swelled to bursting point”.

Around 150 participants played and sang under Haydn’s baton, including the singer Christine Gerardi - the only woman on stage - with her “light and youthful soprano voice, beautifully shaped, expressive phrases and especially her fiery eyes”, alongside Ignaz Saal “with velvet might” as Raphael and Matthias Rathmayer as Uriel. Both the audience and the music critics were captivated.

The Viennese correspondent of the “Neuen tetschen Merkurs” [New German Mercury] reported back ot Weimar that the music of the “Creation” had a “power of depiction which surpasses all imagination; one is swept up, sees the elements storm, sees it become light, the fallen spirits sink deep into the abyss; one trembles at the rolling thunder, joins in the jubilations of the heavenly host. The sun rises, the joyful praise of the birds rises to meet it; the green plants sprout from the earth, the cool stream tinkles silvery, and rising from the deeps, Leviathan sports in the foaming waves.”

The highly anticipated new release in the critically acclaimed Haydn ARS series once again features the Cappella Coloniesis under the direction of Bruno Weil.

Bruno Weil is considered as one of the world’s leading interpreter of Haydn’s music. Haydn is represented in many of his 22 recordings released on the Sony Classical label. His recording with the Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik of the “Paris” Symphonies by Haydn won the MIDEM Cannes Classical award in 1996. Weil and Tafelmusik have also been awarded the German Echo Klassik Award as Orchestra of the Year in 1996 for their recording of Haydn’s Missa Sancti Bernardi (Heiligmesse), and in 1997 Weil himself won the Echo Klassik Award as Conductor of the Year. Cappella Coloniensis, founded in 1954, was the first orchestra in the world to make music according to historical performance practices. Amongst the important conductors that have stood in front of the orchestra are Ferdinand Leitner, William Christie and John Eliot Gardiner, to name only a few. In 2003 the musicians of Cappella Coloniensis chose Bruno Weil as their artistic director. The present recording of Haydn’s Seasons arises out of a concert performance given in the Philharmonie Essen in 2010.