Secular Religion

We are just in from a great performance of Haydn's "Seasons" here in Fred'ton.  The work was performed in a large wooden church which may have inner buttresses causing acoustic issues.

Regardless, I got to wondering about how many of us miss choirs.  Here was a piece which could be performed on Sundays through the year: Spring for 3 months, then Summer and so forth.

The problem is with the arrangement for the close of Winter.  At my age, it is already striking in how the work moves inevitably to this end.  The finale is a trio with double choir.  It begins with the baritone/bass and then the tenor and finally the soprano. The Trinity.  No question.

The Trinity, like physical ascension, like Divinity of a man - all of these are deal-breakers.  Not to mention the virtuous maidens, the plowman in the furrow. But, oh, that verdant Spring, verdure and then praise of Sun and praise of Wine !  And ending with the traveller, salvation, and the final Amen.

Just think what a small city Vienna was in 1801 !  Not even the Vienna of Musil's Ulrich and the suburbs.  So it is sad to think that even in Papa Haydn's work, a work so close to nature, the secular cannot quite find even seasonal anthems and processionals and recessionals and some more regular occasion for the diapasons, the dithyrambs, the recitations, high, piercing clarabellas - all of which we miss in secular life - between concerts.

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