What a work Joseph Haydn created at the end of his long life as a composer! It is sheer genius right from the beginning when the world is created from (musical) chaos. It is stunning, when the sun later appears for the first time in its full glory on the horizon to a blaze of kettledrums and trumpets. The depiction of the various animals afterwards is full of humour, for example when the contrabassoon and the trombone strike up together to produce the lion’s roar. The solo singers join in with the expertly deployed orchestra. As archangels, they tell and comment on the story of the creation. Later, they lend their voices to the first humans, Adam and Eve. To top it all, Haydn has given the choir some passages that verge on the monumental to celebrate the various days of the creation. With Howard Arman at the baton, the reins are in the hands of one of the most high-profile conductors and choir directors. He was, incidentally, born in London where Haydn’s Oratorio was first performed in English in 1800 to much acclaim.