The Seasons – review

Barbican, LondonFirst performed in 1801, The Seasons was Haydn's last oratorio and has a reputation for being something of a problem piece. Its depiction of a divinely appointed, rationally ordered natural universe, populated solely by a cheerful rural proletariat and a handful of hunting aristos is now apt to strike us as simplistic or arch. More perplexing is the libretto, based on James Thomson's eponymous poem, and the work of Gottfried van Swieten, who also supplied Haydn with the text for ...

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