Haydn's Creation | Epsom Choral Society

The great choral work, The Creation by Haydn, is to be performed by the Epsom Choral Society on Saturday 16th November at St Andrew’s Church, Cheam.

The Epsom Choral Society, now in its 98th season, will sing this oratorio considered by many to be one of Haydn’s masterpieces. The oratorio depicts and celebrates the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis.

The works opens with his famous overture depicting 'The Representation of Chaos' and it is hard to believe that it could have been written in the 18th Century. A contemporary critic wrote in 1800 that it “opens with nothing short of a musical impossibility, the sound of infinite nothingness”. The overture is still considered one of the most extraordinary pieces of writing in the whole of the classical music oeuvre. Its ominous and primordial nature come from the most extraordinary orchestration and it then resolves into a work of utmost joy.