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
Music for the Requiem Mass the actual Roman Catholic liturgy, are often composed as one movement. Musico-thematic relationships among movements within a Requiem can be found as well. Beginning in the 18th century and continuing through the 19th, many composers wrote what are effectively concert works, which by virtue of employing forces too large, or lasting such a considerable duration, prevent them being readily used in an ordinary funeral service; the requiems of Gossec, Berlioz, Verdi, and Dvořák are essentially dramatic concert oratorios. A counter-reaction to this tendency came from the Cecilian movement, which recommended restrained accompaniment for liturgical music, and frowned upon the use