In our community gathering of this Sunday past, at one point we stood around one of five worship stations where we gave focused attention to God who is Eternal Word, Trinity, and Creator by listening to a high-volume rendition of Joseph Haydn’s, The Creation, Chorus and Trio No.14. “The heavens are telling the glory of God,” shouts the chorus in full-voiced opulence, and the trio explains more fully that thus “the word gets out through all the world, sounding in every ear, stranger to no tongue.” The orchestral colouring of crisp brass and tight percussion add a sense of emphatic punctuation that even the best grammatical exegesis can hardly match. It was, for most of us there, one of those moments. “Epiphany” is not too strong a word.
Haydn’s premier biographer tells us that The Creation was fully two years in the writing, and that when the Austrian master was sixty-five years old. When asked why he had taken so long with the work, Haydn replied: “because I intend it to last for a long time.” I myself, however, was caught up short with looming questions about the longevity and aesthetic beauties of the very creation that such musical genius so aptly extols. How do we care for creation, after all? Why should we? I am convinced that it has everything to do with a theology that seriously pays attention to the first chapter of John’s gospel, grappling with the wonder of the Eternal Word, Trinity and Creator. It’s a grand advent text. But can advent wonder be translated into action?
Re: Haydn, God, and Creation
Wes, Hello.
First to say how much I enjoy your posts here. The transgressive nature of Jazz is fascinating, and slowly being digested.
I’m struck, too, by the contrast between Haydn, here, and Handel’s experience of writing the Messiah. A process, if I recall rightly, of a little over ten days, which is borne out when looking at the autograph manuscript in the British Library, the score seems largely uncorrected. A different type, or level, of inspiration perhaps. And in the light of your other piece, one that suggests that Handel was working more like a jazz musician!
I couldn’t agree more that a theology of new creation, as in John 1 and, of course, the passages this echoes in Genesis 1, is the basis of thinking wider about our relationship with creation (as noun and verb).
When I ventured to put up the piece on the arts as (part of) new creation it was against the background of a short conversation with Andrew where he wondered if the working title of the book (Which Art in Heaven) was begging a question about whether there will (would) be art in heaven.
I guess the response to this question hinges on whether we see the new creation primarily in terms of climactic event or eternal process. But I for one cannot imagine human engagement in new creation without not only the power of the arts but as a phenomenal process, a dance, a performance, an improvisation on the Theme of God!