J. Haydn. First edition of the full score of "The Seasons", 1802

Joseph Haydn

Die Jahreszeiten nach Thomson, in Musik gesezt von Joseph Haydn. Partitur…Originalausgabe [full score], Leipzig: Bey Breitkopf & Härtel [1802] 

FIRST EDITION, in two volumes, 496 pages in all, large folio (33.5 x 25cm), type-set music, engraved title, vignette of the four seasons by W.Böhm after G.V. Kininger, subscribers’ list, inscribed by Albi Rosenthal on the inside front cover and by owner on flyleaf ("Dr Grünberg"), contemporary blue boards, slipcase, some painting and repairs to edges of boards

Among the subscribers to this edition of The Seasons were Forkel, Hummel, Pleyel and many other great musicians of the age. The Seasons was the second of the two great oratorios of Haydn’s old age. Both The Creation and The Seasons owe a good deal to Haydn’s two visits to England in the 1790s, where he was exposed to the native tradition of vernacular oratorio where Handel’s works reigned supreme. Both have their basis in English texts, Milton’s Paradise Lost in the case of The Creation and James Thompson’s eponymous poem as regards The Seasons. Haydn’s friend Baron Gottfried van Swieten translated both poems.

LITERATURE:

Hoboken XXI:3; RISM H 2542

PROVENANCE:

Otto Haas