The Seasons (Haydn) comparable to that of "The Creation". In the years that followed, Haydn continued to lead oratorio performances for charitable causes, but it was usually "The Creation" that he led, not "The Seasons". The aging Haydn lacked the energy needed to repeat the labor of self-publication that he had undertaken for "The Creation" and instead assigned the new oratorio to his regular publisher at that time, Breitkopf & Härtel, who published it in 1802. "The Seasons" is written for a fairly large late-Classical orchestra, a chorus singing mostly in four parts, and three vocal soloists, representing archetypal country folk: Simon (bass),
The Seasons (Haydn) was based on extracts from the long English poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730. Whereas in "The Creation" Swieten was able to limit himself to rendering an existing (anonymous) libretto into German, for "The Seasons" he had a much more demanding task. Olleson writes, "Even when Thomson's images were retained, they required abbreviation and adaptation to such an extent that usually no more than faint echoes of them can be discerned, and the libretto often loses all touch with the poem which was its starting point. Increasingly during the course of the oratorio,