The Seasons (Haydn) The Seasons (Haydn) The Seasons (German: "Die Jahreszeiten"), Hob. XXI:3), is an oratorio by Joseph Haydn, first performed in 1801. Haydn was led to write "The Seasons" by the great success of his previous oratorio "The Creation" (1798), which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe. The libretto for "The Seasons" was prepared for Haydn, just as with "The Creation", by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart (among other things commissioning Mozart's reorchestration of Handel's "Messiah"). Van Swieten's libretto
The Creation of the Violin beautiful daughter as his wife. The tale ends with, "This is how the violin came to the world". The tale has folkloric origins and magical content; common in fairy tales, the old hag and the good fairy both possess magical powers. The good fairy, Matuya, is based on magic tales of the Hindu tradition (common in Roma tales). Matuya appears in Transylvanian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and Serbian Roma mythology as queen of the Ursitory. These fairies, typically beautiful women who live in mountainside palaces, enjoy singing and dancing and symbolise music. One of the best-known Roma fairy tales, "The Creation