The Creation

In late autumn and winter, people enjoy hearing choral music. We are only too happy to oblige with two major oratorios: Haydn's Creation and Handel's Messiah, the most popular oratorios of their time. In the 19^th century, music associations emerged everywhere. Here ordinary citizens met, driven by the desire not only to hear these works from the past, but also to perform them. People came together, sang, and socialized, then went home with the sheet music in order to immerse themselves in the works. At the same time, the phenomenon was politicized. These choir associations played a significant role in the development of a bourgeois-democratic self-image. Something to bear in mind when the appearance of light in Haydn's Creation is celebrated in radiant C major.