We went to a performance of Haydn’s Creation in Westminster Abbey – a great experience.

Haydn was apparently inspired by hearing oratorios in England – he must have listened to the Messiah and thought ‘I could do that’. And he did, producing one of his best-known works, popular ever since its first performances. The libretto, a bit more intelligible than the rather obscure one for the Messiah apparently comes from an English text, but has existed in parallel English and German versions since the beginning. Some of the words sung here differed very slightly from those in the programme and, I think, from those I sung at school fifty years ago.

But it’s the music that matters, and Creation, just as a good oratorio should do, delivers all the entertainment, emotion and uplift of a fine opera while remaining upright and morally unimpeachable, without any of the lush presentation and morally questionable themes you’d get in one of those Italian things…