The Seven Last Words of Christ (Haydn) were not the original Latin but pietist poetry, written in German. Haydn was impressed with the new work and decided to improve on it, preparing his own choral version. He had the assistance of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who revised the lyrics used by Friebert. This was the first work in a serial collaboration with van Swieten as librettist that continued with the later oratorios "The Creation" and "The Seasons". The choral version was privately premiered in Vienna on 26 March 1796 before an audience of the nobility, under the sponsorship of the Gesellschaft der Associierten. The public premiere was
Seasons in the Abyss substantial airplay on MTV's now-defunct "Headbangers Ball". "Seasons in the Abyss" features Slayer's first music video, filmed at the Giza Plateau in Giza, Egypt . The album received generally positive reviews by critics. AllMusic's Steve Huey said that it "brought back some of the pounding speed of "Reign in Blood" for their third major-label album", and addressed it to be "their most accessible album, displaying the full range of their abilities all in one place, with sharp, clean production". Huey later wrote that the album "paints Reagan-era America as a cesspool of corruption and cruelty, and the music is as