26.04.2024

MARIE-SOPHIE POLLAK with Haydn's "The Creation" in Madrid

In 1791 - the year of Mozart's death - Viennese musical life was characterised by the Austrian Turkish War, which had begun in 1788, and angered by the performance restrictions imposed as a result of Emperor Joseph II's death. But it was also the year in which Haydn travelled to London for the first time and discovered Handel's oratorios - in particular Israel in Egypt - which the British had included in their repertoire with particular reverence since the composer's death.

The impression left by this music was so intense that the composer - who had already passed the age of 60 - felt "as if he had been transported back to his student days, with the awareness that he still knew nothing". Fortunately, this incident renewed his desire to compose, and after his return to Vienna he wrote "The Creation": an oratorio full of surprising effects that conveys much of the "youthful" vigour with which Haydn tackled the last phase of his artistic career.

Marie-Sophie Pollak makes her debut with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under the baton of Kent Nagano, with whom she also appeared in Haydn's last great oratorio The Seasons in Hamburg's Elbphiharmonie, and can now be heard three times as Gabriel and Eva in the Auditorio Nacional de Música.