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TALICH QUARTET
Right from the publication of its first edition by Artaria of Vienna, the version
for orchestra enjoyed resounding success. It must be said that the composer’s
productivity at this time was remarkable. He wrote the work while he was in
the midst of writing the six ‘Paris’ Symphonies, for which Comte d’Ogny, who
directed the Concert de la Loge Olympique in the French capital, had paid a
small fortune.
During the preparations for publication of
The Seven LastWords of Christ on the Cross
,
Haydn also made a transcription for string quartet issued in the same year, 1787,
alongside an adaptation for solo piano by another hand to which he gave his
approval. He performed both the orchestral and the quartet versions in London in
1791, to a triumphal reception.
The following year, 1795, he heard the orchestral score performedwith the addition
of a sung text at a concert in Passau. Interested, but not satisfied by the result,
he preferred to write new vocal parts himself, setting a text compiled by Baron
Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803), who was later to write the librettos of
The
Creation
and
The Seasons
.
The original orchestration – which, by an irony of history, was not published in a
modern critical edition until 1959 – was substantially revised to produce what now
became an oratorio. But this last versionwas much less widely disseminated in the
years that followed than the original instrumental versions.