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Before proceeding further we may deal finally with the libretto
of "The Creation." The "unintelligible jargon" which disfigures
Haydn's immortal work has often formed the subject of comment; and
assuredly nothing that can be said of it can well be too severe.
"The Creation" libretto stands to the present day as an example of
all that is jejune and incongruous in words for music. The theme
has in itself so many elements of inspiration that it is a matter
for wonder how, for more than a century, English-speaking audiences
have listened to the arrant nonsense with which Haydn's music is
associated. As has been well observed, "the suburban love-making of
our first parents, and the lengthy references to the habits of the
worm and the leviathan are almost more than modern flesh and blood
can endure." Many years ago a leading musical critic wrote that
there ought to be enough value, monetarily speaking, in "The
Creation" to make it worth while preparing a fresh libretto; for,
said he, "the present one seems only fit for the nursery, to use in
connection with Noah's ark." At the Norwich Festival performance of
the oratorio in 1872, the words were, in fact, altered, but in all
the published editions of the work the text remains as it was. It
is usual to credit the composer's friend, Baron van Swieten, with
the "unintelligible jargon." The baron certainly had a considerable
hand in the adaptation of the text. But in reality it owes its very
uncouth verbiage largely to the circumstance that it was first
translated from English into German, and then re-translated back
into English; the words, with the exception of the first chorus,
being adapted to the music. Considering the ways of translators,
the best libretto in the world could not but have suffered under
such transformations, and it is doing a real injustice to the
memory of Baron Swieten, the good friend of more than one composer,
to hold him up needlessly to ridicule. [In one of George Thomson's
letters to Mrs Hunter we read: "It it is not the first time that
your muse and Haydn's have met, as we see from the beautiful
canzonets. Would he had been directed by you about the words to
'The Creation'! It is lamentable to see such divine music joined
with such miserable broken English. He (Haydn) wrote me lately that
in three years, by the performance of 'The Creation' and 'The
Seasons' at Vienna, 40,000 florins had been raised for the poor
families of musicians."]
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