Musical Borrowing
An Annotated Bibliography

Individual record

[+] Brown, A. Peter. "The Creation and The Seasons: Some Allusions, Quotations, and Models from Handel to Mendelssohn." Current Musicology, no. 51 (1993): 26-58.

Haydn's late oratorios The Creation and The Seasons were performed all over Europe soon after their premieres and became immensely popular throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. Haydn borrowed from some previous traditions and predecessors, and the two oratorios were in turn sources of allusions, quotations, and models to many composers in the German-speaking lands, such as Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, and Mendelssohn, providing many musical, textual, and rhetorical relationships. Haydn borrowed from specific works of Handel, Mozart, and himself, as well as from the general stylistic conventions of opera seria and the Singspiel. The famous representation of chaos leading to the appearance of light employed in The Creation was particularly influential for the next generation of composers, with Beethoven prominent among them. Further source materials were provided by the pastoral setting of both oratorios, spinning choruses, and general representations of nature such as storms and sunrises.

Works: Haydn: The Creation (28-30, 35-39), The Seasons (31-39); Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus (40), Fourth Symphony (41), Fifth Symphony (41, 50), String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 (42); King Stephan, Op 117 (42); Leonore Overture No. 3, Op 72 (44), Sixth Symphony (44-47, 50), Second Symphony (48-49), Fidelio (50), Choral Fantasy, Op. 80 (50), Ninth Symphony (50-51); Schubert: "Tragic" Symphony, No. 4, D. 417 (52), "Great" C-Major Symphony, D. 944 (50); Weber: Der Freischütz (52); Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream (53).

Index Classifications: 1700s, 1800s

Contributed by: Luiz Fernando Lopes



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