Choir choral works, though not as numerous as his works for other media, stand out as some of his greatest (such as the "Great" Mass in C minor and Requiem in D minor, the latter of which is often considered the greatest Requiem Mass of all time). Haydn became more interested in choral music near the end of his life following his visits to England in the 1790s, when he heard various Handel oratorios performed by large forces; he wrote a series of masses beginning in 1797 and his two great oratorios "The Creation" and "The Seasons". Beethoven wrote only two
The Seasons (Cage) built on the Indian concept of seasons: winter is associated with quiescence, spring with creation, summer with preservation and fall with destruction. The Finale is a reprise of the first Prelude, symbolizing the cyclical nature of seasons. As in the majority of Cage's compositions from the 1940s, the music of "The Seasons" is based on a predefined proportion. In this case the proportion is 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, and it governs not only the construction of individual movements, but also the proportions of the entire work, roughly defining the relative lengths of the movements. The