Haydn's Canvas of Sound

In 1798, at the age of sixty-six, Franz Joseph Haydn began composing what many consider his greatest work — The Creation. The oratorio opens with a hushed, formless orchestral introduction Haydn called "The Representation of Chaos." Strings murmur. Harmonies drift without resolution. The music wanders like a world waiting to be born. Then comes the choral declaration: "And God said, 'Let there be light!'"…