Joseph Haydn's mighty choral masterpiece, The Creation, is performed in its entirety by the Freiburger Barockorchester and the RIAS Kammerchor.

Composed between 1796 and 1798, The Creation is a celebration of the making of the world. The work's text is based upon the Book of Genesis, sections of the Book of Psalms, and on John Milton's allegorical study of the creation and fall, Paradise Lost.

The oratorio has three parts: the first is devoted to the elements; the second to animals and man; and the third to an earthly paradise. The soloists personify the Archangels Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael in the first two parts and Adam and Eve in the third.

The music scholar James Keller writes: "The pleasure of experiencing Haydn and van Swieten's Die Schöpfung lies less in the inevitable trajectory of the plot--we all know the story, and it contains no real sense of conflict--than in the wide-eyed wonder with which the composer visits its familiar contours. A childlike quality pervades the work, as if Haydn were relating the narrative to young listeners who had never heard it before." (Notes on the Creation, New York Philharmonic (PDF))

The Creation is a 100-minute work. René Jacobs conducts the Freiburger Barockorchester with soloists Julia Kleiter, soprano, Maximilian Schmitt, tenor, Johannes Weisser, bass, and the RIAS Kammerchor under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann.