The song "Schon eilet froh der Ackermann" depicts a plowman working the field and is sung by the farmer Simon, while this work's libretto was adapted from a James Thomson poem by Baron Gottfried van Swieten.
This work's first movement opens with a lugubrious descent down the first part of the G minor scale with each note being played fortissimo. Two muted strings remove their mutes for the last two bars of a section evoking the deadening heat of noon, while the end of the first movement is a fugue based on the "Quam olim Abrahae" portion of Mozart's Requiem. In a famous episode the composer condemned one section of this work that depicted croaking frogs as "French trash," while in the third movement a bassoon represents a gunshot that kills a bird in a piece called the "Pointer" or "Hound-Dog" aria. The soprano, Hanne, sings the "Spinning Song" in the last movement, which also includes a description of a traveler lost in the snow. The song "Schon eilet froh der Ackermann" depicts a plowman working the field and is sung by the farmer Simon, while this work's libretto was adapted from a James Thomson poem by Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Written due to the success of the composer's earlier oratorio based on the Book of Genesis, The Creation, for 10 points, name this Haydn oratorio whose first movement is titled "Spring."
This work's first movement opens with a lugubrious descent down the first part of the G minor scale with each note being played fortissimo.
The {Seasons} ({Die Jahreszeiten})