itten two years after "The Creation," was Haydn's last
oratorio. The music was composed between April, 1798, and April, 1801. It
is not an oratorio in the strict sense of the term, as it partakes of the
form and qualities, not only of the oratorio, but also of the opera and
cantata. The words were compiled by Baron van Swieten from Thomson's
well-known poem of "The Seasons," but it was a long time before he could
persuade Haydn to undertake the task of composing an oratorio on the
subject. His old age and infirmities made him averse to the work. He was
greatly annoyed by the text, and still more so by its compiler, who
insisted upon changes in the music which Haydn testily declined to make.
He was frequently irritated over the many imitative passages, and it was
to relieve his own feelings and vary the monotony of the sentiment that
he introduced the rollicking bacchanal chorus in the third part. He
expressed his feelings to a friend in the remark: "My head was so full of
the nonsensical stuff that it all went topsy-turvy, and I therefore
called the closing fugue the 'drunken fugue.'" Notwithstanding his many
objections, when once he started, he worked hard,--so hard, indeed, that
this continuous labor induced brain-fever and intense suffering, and he
never entirely rallied from its effects. A weakness followed, which
constantly increased. To one friend he remarked: "The 'Seasons' have
brought this trouble upon me. I ought not to have written it. I have
overdone;" and to another: "I have done; my head is no longer what it
was. Formerly ideas came to me unsought: I am now obliged to seek for
them; and for this I feel I am not formed." It is a sad picture, that of
the old composer sitting down to work in his seventieth year, distrustful
of his own powers, with an uncongenial text before him; but no
indications of age or weakness are to be found in this music, which from
its first note to the last is fresh, original, bright, and graceful,--a
treasure-house of ideas to which subsequent composers have gone time
after time when they would write of Nature or attempt to picture her
moods.

The "Seasons" was first performed at the Schwartzenberg Palace, Vienna,
April 24, 1801, and was repeated on the 27th and on the 1st of May. On
the 29th of May Haydn himself conducted it in public at the Redoutensaal,
for his own benefit. Though some of the critics disparaged it, and
Beethoven was not overpleased with it, it met with a great po