[Hob. XXI:3]. Die Jahreszeiten nach Thomson. [Full score copyist manuscript]

Germany or Austria, 1803. Folio (213 x 348 mm). Mid-blue boards with blank octagonal paper label to upper. Notated in brown ink on various 16-stave rastrum-ruled laid papers. 1f. (recto title, verso "Personen"), 329, [i] (blank) pp. With German text. Watermarks include "Wildenfils" (or "Wildenfels"), "GH," and "IV-WR."

With occasional cancellations and corrections. Most blank measures numbered, indicating the manuscript may have been intended for publication, or for the production of parts.

Binding worn, rubbed, and bumped. Slightly worn; light uniform browning; occasional minor stains, primarily to blank margins. In very good (truncated) condition overall. This interesting manuscript appears to comply with the first edition of the full score published in Leipzig by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1802 (published in two issues, one with German and French text and the other with German and English text), the exception being that the present manuscript includes German text only. We have not located any contemporary published full scores with German text only.

One of Haydn's two masterful oratorios, this secular work was written shortly after The Creation (1798) to a libretto by Baron Gottfried von Swieten (1733-1803) after the eponymous poem by James Thomson (1700-1748) published in 1730. The work was first performed on 24 April 1801 in a private première at the Schwarzenberg Palace in Vienna; the first public production took place on 29 May 1801.

"Although the initial reception of The Seasons was favourable – Haydn wrote to Clementi that it had enjoyed ‘unanimous approval’ and that ‘many prefer it to The Creation, because of its greater variety’ – critical opinion soon became mixed, owing in part to its perceived ‘lower’ subject, in part to a growing aesthetic resistance to its many pictorialisms. Haydn himself contributed to both strands of criticism: he supposedly said to Francis II, ‘In The Creation angels speak and tell of God, but in The Seasons only Simon speaks’ (Dies); and he indiscreetly criticized Swieten’s croaking frogs (‘Frenchified trash’) and the absurdity of a choral hymn to toil (Fleiss). Nonetheless he maintained that it would join The Creation in assuring his lasting fame. For the publication he took the path of lesser resistance, selling the rights to Breitkopf & Härtel. ...

Notwithstanding its less exalted subject, The Seasons is compositionally more virtuoso than The Creation and offers greater variety of tone: Haydn’s pastoral is one of the final glories of a tradition that is more than ‘high’ enough." Georg Feder and James Webster in Grove Music Online

The music is "of wonderful freshness and unfailing originality." TNG Vol. 8, p. 347. (Inventory #: 40112)