Choral SATB choir, piano
SKU: PR.362034230
A Prologue to THE
CREATION by Franz Joseph
Haydn. Composed by
Dan Welcher. Sws.
Premiered at the
Northwest Hills United
Methodist Church, Austin,
TX. Choral. Performance
Score. With Standard
notation. Composed July 5
2014. 16 pages. Duration
5:15. Theodore Presser
Company #362-03423.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.362034230).
ISBN
9781598069556. UPC:
680160624225. Letter
inches.
English.
When the
Texas Choral Consort
asked Welcher to write a
short prologue to Haydn's
The Creation, his first
reaction was that Haydn
already presents Chaos in
his introductory
movement. As he thought
about it, Welcher began
envisioning a truer void
to precede Haydn's
depiction of Chaos within
the scope of 18th-century
classical style - quoting
some of Haydn's themes
and showing human voices
and inhuman sounds in a
kind of pre-creation
melange of color, mood,
and atmosphere. Welcher
accepted this challenge
with the proviso that his
prologue would lead
directly into Haydn's
masterpiece without
stopping, and certainly
without applause in
between. Scored for mixed
chorus and Haydn's
instrumentation, Without
Form and Void is a
dramatically fresh yet
pragmatic enhancement to
deepen any performance of
Haydn's The Creation.
Orchestral score and
parts are available on
rental.
When Brent
Baldwin asked me to
consider writing a short
prologue to THE CREATION,
my first response was
“Why?â€Â
THE CREATION already
contains a prologue;
it’s called
“Representation of
Chaosâ€, and
it’s
Haydn’s way of
showing the formless
universe. How could a
new piece do anything but
get in the way? But
the more I thought about
it, the more it made
sense. The Age of
Enlightenment’s
idea of
“Chaos†was
just extended
chromaticism, no more
than Bach used (in fact,
Bach went
further).Perhaps there
might be a way to use the
full resources of the
modern orchestra (or at
least, a Haydn-sized
orchestra) and the modern
chorus to really present
a cosmic soup of unborn
musical atoms, just
waiting for
Haydn’s sure touch
to animate them.Â
Perhaps it could even
quote some of
Haydn’s themes
before he knew them
himself, and also show
human voices and inhuman
sounds in a kind of
pre-creation mélange
of color, mood, and
atmosphere. So I
accepted the challenge,
with the proviso that my
new piece not be treated
as some kind of
“overtureâ€,
but would instead be
allowed to lead directly
into Haydn’s
masterpiece without
stopping, and certainly
without applause. I
crafted this five minute
piece to begin with a
kind of “music of
the spheresâ€
universe-hum, created by
tuned wine glasses and
violin harmonics. The
chorus enters very soon
after, with the opening
words of Genesis
whispered simultaneously
in as many languages as
can be found in a
chorus. The first two
minutes of my work are
all about unborn human
voices and unfocused
planetary sounds,
gradually becoming more
and more
“coherentâ€
until we finally hear
actual pitches, melodies,
and words. Three of
Haydn’s melodies
will be heard, to be
specific, but not in the
way he will present them
an hour from now.Â
It’s almost as if
we are listening inside
the womb of the universe,
looking for a faint
heartbeat of worlds,
animals, and people to
come. At the end of
the piece, the chorus
finally finds its voice
with a single word:
“God!â€,Â
and the orchestra finally
finds its own pulse as
well. The unstoppable
desire for birth must now
be answered, and it
is----by Haydn’s
marvelous oratorio. I
am not a religious man in
any traditional
sense. Neither was
Haydn, nor Mozart, nor
Beethoven. But all of
them, as well as I, share
in what is now called a
humanistic view of how
things came to be, how
life in its many forms
developed on this planet,
and how Man became the
recorder of history.Â
The gospel according to
John begins with a parody
of Genesis: “In
the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word
was God.â€Â  I
love that phrase, and
it’s in that
spirit that I offer my
humble
“opener†to
the finest work of one of
the greatest composers
Western music has ever
known. My piece is
not supposed to sound
like Haydn.Â
It’s supposed to
sound like a giant
palette, on which a
composer in 1798 might
find more outrageous
colors than his era would
permit…but which, I
hope, he would have been
delighted to hear.