The Seasons | Classical review

Barbican, LondonThe first of Haydn's two great oratorios dealt with the biblical account of creation; its successor took as its subject the four seasons, drawing on the composer's long memories of the annual rural round and the country life he grew up with as a wheelwright's son. Though there's plenty of Arcadian innocence in the result, the Seasons is not without shadows. A comic scene near the end warns of the seduction techniques noblemen practise upon country maidens (unsuccessfully, in this...

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