Haydn took two years to write the music. It was first performed in Vienna on 24 April 1801. The audience liked it, although not as much as "The Creation". One problem was that Haydn was not very happy about the libretto. He thought that oratorios should be about serious, dramatic stories from the Bible or from classical mythology, not about everyday life. Van Swieten was not very happy when Haydn criticized it, but he did not change it, and Haydn did his best to make the work interesting.