“The Seasons” with a lot of atmosphere in the Brucknerhaus in Linz

It’s been a long time since Haydn’s Seasons were heard in Linz. There are certainly many reasons for this. The libretto, written by the patron Gottfried van Swieten and largely based on James Thomson’s verse epic “The Seasons”, corresponded less to the Enlightenment ideal and more to Rousseau’s philosophy in its depictions of nature and the idealized transfiguration of country life. This was not appreciated by Haydn, who considered the text to be too unpoetically crude, nor did the “Seasons” achieve a similar positive response from contemporary audiences as the oratorio “The Creation” that came before it. Van Swieten also had a hand in this, but only as a client and not, as here, as a provider of money and texts, where Haydn hardly had the opportunity to turn down the work.

For this reason, or perhaps precisely because of this, Haydn wrote music that is truly challenging in many places and can quickly push the performers to their limits. The difficulties are therefore another argument that the work is rarely heard.

Sound performance

All the more respect must be given to the Brucknerchor Linz under Martin Zeller for taking on this work last Wednesday in the Brucknerhaus and bringing it to the stage in an equally respectable form. Because almost every choral movement – not just the wine choir from the autumn, which Haydn himself described as the “b’soffene fugue” – has its treacherous passages that amateur choirs can hardly handle, or at least not in the planned time. This slowed down the tempo of many numbers considerably, so that the work, which ideally can be performed in just over two hours, took almost three hours including a break.

With Regina Riel, who stepped in for Erica Eloff, who was ill at short notice, the Brucknerchor Linz had found an excellent Hanne who played very intensively. But her father Simon also found his proper vocal presence in Michael Wagner and Matthäus Schmidlechner was the skillfully in love young farmer Lukas. The Sonare Linz ensemble, led by Peter Gillmayr as concertmaster, was a reliable, sonorous orchestral partner that created a great atmosphere under the direction of Martin Zeller.

Conclusion: A courageous seasonal undertaking that was positively received by the audience.