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Home , Apollo e Dafne (Handel), Dafne, Dafne (Opitz-Schütz), London Handel Festival, Nicholas Lens, Night of Hunters

HANDEL E , HWV 122

Ensemble Marsyas Peter Whelan director Ensemble Marsyas Peter Whelan director

Mhairi Lawson Dafne Callum Thorpe Apollo

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) (), HWV 8a 1. Ouverture ...... 4:09 2. Largo ...... 3:09 3. Allegro ...... 2:18 4. Allegro ...... 1:35 5. Largo ...... 7:32 6. Allegro ...... 3:42

7. in F major, HWV 410 ...... 4:43

8. Aria in F major, HWV 411 ...... 1:41

Apollo e Dafne, HWV 122 9. Recitativo: La terra e liberata! ...... 0:44 10. Aria: Pende il ben dell’universo ...... 3:51 11. Recitativo: Ch’il superbetto Amore ...... 0:30 12. Aria: Spezza l’arco e getta l’armi ...... 2:51 13. Aria: Felicissima quest’alma ...... 6:05

2 14. Recitativo: Che voce! Che beltà! ...... 1:03 15. Aria: Ardi, adori, e preghi in vano ...... 3:00 16. Recitativo: Che crudel! Ch’importuno! ...... 0:17 17. Duetto: Una guerra ho dentro il seno ...... 2:10 18. Recitativo: Placati ai fin, o cara ...... 0:20 19. Aria: Come rosa in su la spina ...... 2:52 20. Recitativo: Ah, ch’un Dio non dovrebbe ...... 0:21 21. Aria: Come in ciel benigna stella ...... 3:44 22. Recitativo: Odi la mia ragion! Sorda son io! ...... 0:25 23. Duetto: Deh! lascia addolcire quell’aspro rigor ...... 2:44 24. Recitativo: Sempre t’adorerò! ...... 0:21 25. Aria: Mie piante correte ...... 3:05 26. Aria: Cara pianta, co’ miei pianti ...... 5:58

Total Running Time: 69 minutes

3 Recorded at North Leith Parish Church, Edinburgh, UK, 15–17 June 2015 Produced and recorded by Philip Hobbs Assistant engineering by Robert Cammidge Post-production by Julia Thomas Cover image by Colm Mac Athlaoich Design by gmtoucari.com

This recording was supported by Creative Scotland

This recording is dedicated to the memory of Peter Whelan Sr. (1947–2015)

4 Handel in Hanover: Some Speculation

n 1703 left his native Halle and travelled to Hamburg where he scraped a living as a back-desk violinist at the I Gänsemarkt house and gradually worked his way up through the ranks until his first operaAlmira was premiered there in January 1705. By mid-1706, the twenty-one year old Handel had become fascinated by Italianate music and resolved to travel to Italy at his own expense. Probably arriving in Rome by Christmas 1706, he spent just over the next three years in Italy where he absorbed the influences of the most illustrious Italian composers, librettists and performers of the day. He pursued a successful freelance career writing spectacular church music and secular cantatas in Rome, a serenata for Naples, and for and . According to his first biographer, John Mainwaring, the climax to Handel’s Italian journey was the opera , premiered on 26 December 1709 at the Teatro San Giovanni Gristostomo in Venice (now known as Teatro Malibran):

This opera drew over all the best singers from the other houses. Among the foremost of these was the famous Vittoria, who a little before Handel’s removal to Venice had obtained permission of the grand Duke to sing in one of the houses there. At Agrippina her inclinations gave new lustre to her talents. Handel seemed almost as great and majestic as Apollo, and it was far from the lady’s intention to be so cruel and obstinate as .

Mainwaring’s anecdotal account is confused and contradicted by documentary sources. Victoria Tarquini was the favourite soprano

5 (and mistress) of Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici in Florence, where she might have first met Handel in 1707 at around the time of his operaRodrigo (in which she did not take part). She was not employed by any of Venice’s theatres during the 1709–10 carnival season, is not known to have travelled to the city, and is not mentioned in the cast list in the printed libretto of Agrippina. Nevertheless, Mainwaring’s analogy to the myth of (the god of music) Apollo’s ill-fated amorous pursuit of the beautiful but unrelenting nymph Daphne is an intriguing coincidence. Before Handel left Venice in early 1710, he had started setting to music the dramatic cantata La terra è liberata, known nowadays by its popular nickname .

The anonymous libretto is based on ’s as retold by Petrarch in Canzoniere. Apollo has just defeated the monstrous Python and liberated the people of Delphi and the cantata commences with his arrogant boasting: he has delivered the earth from terror with his bow (‘Pende il ben dell’universo, da quest’arco salutar’); he brags that his skills as an archer are superior to ’s, and that he can never be vanquished by any opponent (the flamboyant ‘Spezza l’arco e getta l’armi’). Cupid gains his revenge instantly when the blissful nymph Daphne enters the scene, singing her gorgeous aria ‘Felicissima quest’alma / ch’ama sol la libertà’ (accompanied by pizzicato strings and a murmuring solo – the instrument is a distinctive feature in all three of her ). Instantly smitten by her voice and beauty, the enraptured Apollo tries to seduce Daphne in vain; she rejects him resolutely, professing that she is devoted only to Apollo’s sister Diana (‘Ardi, adori, e preghi in vano’; this time the solo oboe conveys anguish).

6 They are depicted at loggerheads in a scampering duet that shows their opposition intensifying (‘Una guerra ho dentro il seno’). Sensing his abject failure, Apollo tries another tactic, and speaks seductively (‘Come rosa in su la spina’), with gently rustling strings and rapturous cello obbligato, but she spurns him again in a plaintive lament (‘Come in ciel benigna stella’), an eloquent dialogue with oboe. Apollo’s melancholic lyricism and Daphne’s scornful irritation are astutely characterized in a confrontational duet (‘Deh! lascia addolcire’). Eventually, Apollo’s amorous failures lead inexorably to sexual frustration, and he runs after her with rapacious intent (‘Mie piante correte’ – florid concertante violin and parts convey the sense of the chase) – but this is suddenly interrupted by his shocked reaction when Daphne escapes his pursuit by metamorphosing into a laurel tree. The guilty god is astonished, disappointed and chastened; he promises that from henceforth all heroes shall wear a crown of laurels in Daphne’s honour (‘Cara pianta’), with spellbinding trio passages for two and bassoon.

Handel initially wrote the music on the same unusual paper-type that he had used in the autograph manuscript of Agrippina, which means that he must have taken the unfinished cantata with him to Hanover where the score was revised and the remainder of the music completed sometime later in 1710. A considerable amount of the finished score is written on a unique paper-type not evident in any of Handel’s other autograph manuscripts, but which has been identified in manuscripts prepared by a Hanover copyist for the electoral court library of operas by Agostino Steffani (the court Kapellmeister from 1688–1703).

7 Fresh from his Italian successes, Handel was appointed as the new court Kapellmeister by Elector Georg Ludwig (the future George I of Great Britain) on 16 June 1710 – just two days after the Dowager Electress Sophia had written to her granddaughter with gossip about the handsome young musician:

The Elector has taken on a Master of the Chapel named Hendel, who plays marvelously on the , which gives the Electoral Prince and Princess great joy. He is quite a handsome man, and gossip says that he has been the lover of Victoria [Tarquini].

Such gossip was unambiguously scandalous in Hanover because the court orchestra’s concertmaster Jean-Baptiste Farinel – a French violinist who managed the day-to-day activities of the Hanoverian musicians – had married Tarquini in 1689. Whether or not the gossip reflected truth, it is incontrovertible that Handel proceeded to spend surprisingly little time doing his job in Hanover. According to Mainwaring, the composer ‘loved liberty too well’ to accept the job without the condition that he be permitted to accept an invitation he had already received from the Duke of Manchester to visit England.

After only a few months in Hanover, Handel was in London by the winter of 1710. The popular success of (first performed at the Queen’s Theatre on the Haymarket, 24 February 1711) might have persuaded the ambitious composer that his future was in Britain rather than Hanover. Nevertheless, he most likely left London in May 1711 and returned to his official duties at Hanover. By the end of July, Handel was studying to improve his command of the English language and after approximately

8 seventeen months based in Hanover he was back in London by mid- October 1712. Two new contrasting operas were composed for the 1712–13 season; the pastoral tragicomedy Il pastor fido (first performed on 22 November 1712) and the French-style five-act tragedyTeseo (first performed on 10 January 1713). This time Handel’s visit evolved into permanent residence, not least because his increasingly close ties to the court of Queen Anne and prolonged absences from Hanover irked the Elector to the extent that the Kapellmeister was unceremoniously dismissed from his job in June 1713.

An examination of Handel’s scores and research into court documents yields few clues about what kinds of musical activities he undertook as part of his official duties in Hanover. Elector Georg Ludwig had closed down the 1,300 seat opera house built in the late1680s by his father Ernst in August. Instead, there seems to have been an emphasis on during Handel’s brief association with the court music at Hanover and most of his music-making probably took place at Herrenhausen, the summer palace where the court resided between May and October each year. There was a garden theatre, and it is tempting to imagine Apollo e Dafne being performed there as a serenata one summer evening – although the completion of the score after his arrival in Hanover does not necessarily mean it was intended for the electoral court.

A more certain contender for Handel’s contributions to court music at Hanover is a series of twelve chamber duets set to poetry by Ortensio Mauro, a former secretary to the Hanover court whose verses had also been set as chamber duets by Steffani. Perhaps a few keyboard and instrumental

9 pieces had their origins during Handel’s time in Hanover. On the other hand, the court orchestra of about eighteen musicians was admired by Georg Philipp Telemann for its ability to play in the French style, and the Hamburg theorist Johann Mattheson claimed that ‘an excellent band of oboists’ had been headhunted from the Prussian court at Berlin. Maybe some of these players could have been featured prominently in the various woodwind parts of Apollo e Dafne. Moreover, it seems inconceivable that Handel would not have composed some orchestral music with the Hanover band at his disposal.

It is plausible that the unusually long six-movement overture to the London opera Il pastor fido might have originated as an independent orchestral suite written for the Hanover court written in 1711–12 (i.e. the longest period Handel spent in Hanover, between his two trips to England). It comprises a superb French-style overture followed by five contrasting movements, and no other overture for any of Handel’s operas (and oratorios) for London is so elaborate and extended. The eighteenth-century music historian Charles Burney praised it as ‘one of the most masterly and pleasing of the kind’. There is an elegant flow between finely crafted fast and quick movements, and the music contains plenty of prominent woodwind writing: the gorgeous seven-part ‘Largo’ in F major has a trio of oboes and bassoon, and the plaintive ‘Adagio’ in D minor is a tender dialogue between solo oboe and violin (all elements similar to those we find inApollo e Dafne).

Not much is currently known about the players in the Hanover court orchestra, but in London, Handel could certainly utilize the talents of highly

10 esteemed woodwind players. The opera orchestra at the Queen’s Theatre for the 1712–13 season would have included the oboists John Ernest Galliard and John Christian Kytch. Both were continental musicians who had come to London in the years shortly before Handel’s arrival; these oboists would also have played recorder and parts as required. Galliard – German-born but the son of a French wig-maker – was trained as an oboist in the court orchestra in his native Celle. In 1706 he moved to London where he worked as a chamber musician, organist and composer; he also translated Pier Francesco Tosi’s famous treatise on singing into English and was a founding member of the Academy of Ancient Music. Handel composed several plaintive oboe obbligato parts for Galliard in , so it is likely he would also have played similar parts in Il pastor fido. Kytch was probably Dutch, and had worked at the Queen’s Theatre as a bassoonist since about 1708; he was named in Handel’s score of Rinaldo as the bassoon soloist in ‘Venti turbini, prestate’ (adapted from Apollo’s ‘Mie piante correte’). From 1712 Kytch played oboe alongside Galliard; a few years later he was one of the highest-paid musicians in the service of the Earl of Carnarvon at Cannons, where he would have played the lyrical oboe parts in Handel’s , and various church anthems. After his death in 1738, the destitution of his family inspired professional musicians to establish the Fund for Decay’d Musicians or their Families – the organization that evolved into the Royal Society of Musicians.

Such connections between Handel and instrumentalists working in the opera house remind us that the typical composers did not tend to write abstract music, but almost always tailor-made new music for real

11 people who they knew and worked with. This is presumably also the case with two ‘Arias’ for wind ensemble composed at some point during the mid-1720s. Both in F major and scored for two oboes, two horns and a instrument (presumably bassoon), it is likely that these were written as concert recital pieces for the woodwind and horn players in the orchestra at the opera house (renamed the King’s Theatre when the Elector of Hanover became King George I in 1714). HWV 410 is modelled after Arcane’s aria ‘Benché tuoni e l’etra avvampi’ from Teseo. Maybe the oboists also had something to do with Handel’s composition of these two little wind- ensemble pieces about a decade later, and perhaps the dexterous natural horn parts were played by two of the four players required for in Egitto (first performed 20 February 1724).

© David Vickers, 2016

12 Texts and Translations Apollo e Dafne, HWV 122

9. Recitativo Apollo Apollo La terra e liberata! The earth is set free! La Grecia e vendicata! Apollo ha vinto! Greece is avenged! Apollo has conquered! Dopo tanti terrori e tante stragi After such terrors and such slaughter Che desolaro e spopolaro i regni That have devastated and depopulated the country Giace Piton, per la mia mano estinto. The python lies dead, put to death by my hand. Apollo ha trionfato! Apollo ha vinto! Apollo has triumphed! Apollo has conquered!

10. Aria Aria Apollo Apollo Pende il ben dell’universo The good of the universe Da quest’arco salutar. Relies on this saving bow. Di mie lodi il suol rimbombe With my praises let the earth resound Ed appresti l’ecatombe And sacrifices be prepared Al mio braccio tutelar. To my protecting arm.

11. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Ch’il superbetto Amore Let cupid in his pretty pride Delle saette mie ceda a la forza; Give way to the force of my arrows; Ch’omai più non si vanti Let him boast no more Della punta fata! d’aurato strale. Of the fatal point of his golden arrows. Un sol Piton più vale One python alone is worth more Che mille accesi e saettati amanti. Than a thousand ardent wounded lovers.

13 12. Aria Aria Apollo Apollo Spezza l’arco e getta l’armi, Break your bow and cast away your weapons, Dio dell’ozio e del piacer. God of idleness and pleasure. Come mai puoi tu piagarmi, How can you ever hurt me, Nume ignudo e cieco arcier? Naked spirit and blind archer?

13. Aria Aria Dafne Daphne Felicissima quest’alma, Most blest is this soul, Ch’ama sol la libertà. That loves only freedom. Non v’è pace, non v’è calma There is not peace, there is no calm Per chi sciolto il cor non ha. If the heart is not unfettered.

14. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Che voce! Che beltà! What a voice! What a beauty! Questo suon, questa vista il cor trapassa. This sound, this pierces my heart. Ninfa! Nymph! Dafne Daphne Che veggo, ahi lassa? What do I see, alas? E che sarà costui, chi mi sorprese? And who is it that surprises me? Apollo Apollo Io son un dio, ch’il tuo bel volto accese. I am a god, whom your beauty has aroused. Dafne Daphne Non conosco altro I know no other Dei tra queste selve che la sola Diana; God in these woods but only Diana; Non t’accostar divinità profana. Do not come near, profane God. Apollo Apollo Di Cinta io son fratel; I am Cynthia’s brother; S’ami la suora, If you love my sister, Abbia, o bella, pietà di chi t’adora. Fair one, pity the one who adores you.

14 15. Aria Aria Dafne Daphne Ardi, adori, e preghi in vano; You burn, adore, and beg in vain; Solo a Cintia io son fedel. Only to Cynthia am I faithful. Alle fiamme del germano To her brother’s flames of love Cintia vuoi ch’io sia crudel. Cynthia would have me cruel.

16. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Che crudel! How cruel! Dafne Daphne Ch’importuno! How importunate! Apollo Apollo Cerco il fin de’ miei mali. I seek an end to my troubles. Dafne Daphne Ed io lo scampo. And I shall survive it. Apollo Apollo Io mi struggo d’amor. I am consumed with love. Dafne Daphne Io d’ira avvampo. I am burning with anger.

17. Duetto Duet Apollo, Dafne Apollo, Daphne Una guerra ho dentro il seno A war rages in my breast Che soffrir più non si può. That I can bear no longer. Apollo Apollo Ardo, gelo. I burn, I freeze. Dafne Daphne Temo, peno; I fear, I suffer; Apollo, Dafne Apollo, Daphne All’ardor non metti freno If this ardour is not checked Pace aver mai non potrò. I can never have peace.

15 18. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Placati ai fin, o cara. Be calm now, my dear one. La beltà che m’infiamma The beauty that inflames me Sempre non fiorirà; ciò che natura Will not flower forever; the fairest that nature Di più vago formò passa, e non dura. Creates passes, and does not last.

19. Aria Aria Apollo Apollo Come rosa in su la spina As the rose with its thorn Presto viene e presto va, Quickly comes and quickly goes, Tal con fuga repentina, So with sudden flight, Passa il fior della beltà. Passes the flower of beauty.

20. Recitativo Recitative Dafne Daphne Ah, ch’un dio non dovrebbe Ah! A god should follow Altro amore seguir ch’oggetti eterni; After no other love than for objects eternal; Perirà, finirà caduca polve che grala a te mi rende, The fleeting dust will perish, will end, non già la virtù che mi difende. But not the virtue that protects me.

21. Aria Aria Dafne Daphne Come in ciel benigna stella As in gentle heaven Di Nettun placa il furor, The star of Neptune calms the storm, Tal in alma onesta e bella, So in an honest and fair soul, La ragion frena t’amor. Reason holds love in check.

16 22. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Odi la mia ragion! Hear my reason! Dafne Daphne Sorda son io! I am deaf! Apollo Apollo Orsa e tigre tu sei! You are a bear, a tigress! Dafne Daphne Tu non sei Dio! You are no God! Apollo Apollo Cedi all’amor, o proverai la forza. Yield to love, or you will feel my force. Dafne Daphne Nel sangue mio questa tua fiamma amorza. In my blood this ardour of yours will be quenched.

23. Duetto Duet Apollo Apollo Deh! lascia addolcire quell’aspro rigor, Ah! Soften that harsh severity. Dafne Daphne Più tosto morire che perder l’onor. To die is better than to lose my honour. Apollo Apollo Deh! cessino l’ire, o dolce mio cor. Ah! Cease your anger, O beloved of my heart. Dafne Daphne Più tosto morire che perder l’onor. To die is better than to lose my honour.

24. Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Sempre t’adorerò! Always will I adore you! Dafne Daphne Sempre t’aborrirò! Always will I abhor you! Apollo Apollo Tu non mi fuggirai! You shall not escape me! Dafne Daphne Si, che ti fuggirò’! Yes I will escape you!

17 Apollo Apollo Ti seguirò, correrò, I will follow you, run after you, Volerò sui passi tuoi, Fly in your steps, Più veloce del sole esser non puoi. Swifter than the sun you cannot be.

25. Aria Aria Apollo Apollo Mie piante correte; Run, my feet, Mie braccia stringete Hold tight, my arms L’ingrata beltà. La tocco, cingo, The ungrateful beauty. I touch her, I hold her, La prendo, la stringo. I take her, I hold her tightly. Ma, qua novità? Che vidi? Che mirai? But, what sudden change is this? What do I see? What behold? Cieli! Destino! che sarai mai! Heavens! Fate! Whatever is it!

Recitativo Recitative Apollo Apollo Dafne, dove sei tu? Che non ti trovo. Daphne, where are you? I cannot find you. Qual miracolo nuovo What new miracle Ti rapisce, ti cangia e ti nasconde? Has taken you away, changed you and hidden you? Che non t’offenda mai del ‘verno il gelo, May the cold of winter never harm you, Ne il folgore dal cielo Nor the thunder of heaven touch Tocchi la sacra e gloriosa fronde. Your sacred and glorious foliage.

26. Aria Aria Apollo Apollo Cara pianta, co’ miei pianti Dear laurel, with my tears lì tuo verde irrigherò; I shall water your green leaves; De’ tuoi rami trionfanti With your triumphant branches Sommi eroi coronerò. Will I crown the greatest heroes. Se non posso averti in seno, If I cannot hold you in my bosom, Dafne, almeno Daphne, at least Sovra il crin ti porterò. On my brow will I wear you.

18 Photograph by David Barbour Peter Whelan director and harpsichord

Irish-born Peter Whelan is a versatile musician with a diverse repertoire spanning over 400 years. He is in constant demand as a bassoonist, director, chamber musician and teacher.

Equally at home on historical and modern instruments, Whelan holds the position of Principal Bassoon with both the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has been described as a ‘phenomenon on the baroque bassoon’ (Crescendo magazine, Germany), whose performances feature ‘jaw-dropping dexterous virtuosity’ (Gramophone).

Whelan is the founder and Artistic Director of Ensemble Marsyas. Directing from the harpsichord, Whelan has led Ensemble Marsyas in performances at the Wigmore Hall, Dublin Castle and at the Lammermuir and Great Music in Irish Houses Festivals.

As director, Whelan has a particular passion for exploring and championing neglected and forgotten music of the Baroque era. Recent projects funded by The Irish Arts Council and Creative Scotland involved recreating music from the manuscripts and staging in live performance choral and symphonic music from eighteenth-century Dublin and Edinburgh.

As a concerto soloist, Whelan has performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including the Musikverein (Vienna), the Lincoln Center (NY) and the Wigmore Hall (London – broadcast live on BBC radio). In 2016, Whelan premiered a specially commissioned Bassoon Concerto by

20 American composer Michael Gordon, performing with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Southbank Centre.

As a chamber musician, Whelan has collaborated with the Belcea Quartet, Francois Leleux, Robert Levin, Kris Bezuidenhout, Anthony Marwood and Monica Huggett, and appears with in her Night of Hunters which was recorded for Deutsche Gramophone.

Whelan has an extensive discography, including Weber’s Bassoon Concerto with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on Linn and Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto and Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante with Arcangelo on . With Ensemble Marsyas, Whelan’s recordings of Zelenka’s Sonatas and subsequent album of Fasch’s quartets and concertos, were both awarded a Supersonic Award from Pizzicato and were named ‘Chamber Choice’ by BBC Music Magazine.

Whelan is committed to the development of the next generation of performing musicians and is professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

21 Photograph by Katie Glastonbury Mhairi Lawson soprano

As a soloist Mhairi Lawson has performed in opera houses and concert halls worldwide with English National Opera, Les Arts Florissants, Gabrieli Consort, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and with leading conductors such as William Christie, Sir Charles Mackerras, Paul McCreesh, Jane Glover and Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Highlights include a series of concerts of Bach’s cantatas with Laurence Cummings and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, a recital with Christian Curnyn as part of the Spitalfields Festival in London, Handel’sAcis and Galatea (Galatea) and Purcell’s King Arthur with the Early Opera Company, Handel’s with the Hallé, as well as performances with Dunedin Consort, Oxford Philomusica, and Bach’s Matthew Passion with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort. Lawson continues her recital collaboration with Eugene Asti.

23 Photograph by Mike Hoban Callum Thorpe bass

Callum Thorpe began his musical training as a chorister at Coventry Cathedral and subsequently studied opera at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating with distinction. Operatic highlights include Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Masetto) for Glyndebourne on Tour, for Garsington Opera and at the Birgitta Festival in Estonia, Handel’s (Valens) for Les Arts Florissants in Paris, New York and Amsterdam. Other highlights include Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Sarastro) and Verdi’s Macbeth (Banquo) at Theater Basel and Rameau’s Platée (Jupiter) at St John’s Smith Square for the Early Opera Company. Thorpe was the bass cover in the world premiere of , written by and for , . He also performed in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Plutone) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Roundhouse. Thorpe played Gibarian in the world premiere performances of Fujikura’s Solaris in Paris, Lille and Lausanne and Britten’s Billy Budd (Lieutenant Ratcliffe) with Opera North. On the concert platform Thorpe has sung much of the major oratorio repertoire and regularly performs throughout the UK and internationally; highlights include his debut at Tel Aviv Opera House, performing with Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (Laurence Cummings), Handel’s Esther at the and Handel’s Acis and Galatea with Basel Kammerorchester conducted by Paul Goodwin in Vienna and Paris, Bach’s Matthew Passion with Philharmonie Zuidnederland also conducted by Paul Goodwin, performances of Bach’s John Passion, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and performances at the BBC Proms.

25 Ensemble Marsyas

Formed in 2011 to explore the virtuoso wind music from the eighteenth century, Ensemble Marsyas counts amongst its members some of the finest historical instrumentalists working in today. Having first met whilst studying in Basel and performing with the European Union Baroque Orchestra, the core members of the ensemble went on to win first prize and audience prize at the 2007 Brugge International Competition playing the music of Zelenka. Each member has since established themselves at the forefront of the profession and individually they have been awarded accolades by both critics and the recording industry alike. Their debut recording of Zelenka’s sonatas (released with Linn in 2012), was awarded a Supersonic Award from Pizzicato and was named ‘Chamber Choice’ by BBC Music Magazine. Other projects include collaborations with fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and recorder player Maurice Steger, focusing on the exploration of Handel and his wind players and the rediscovery of the soundscape of eighteenth-century Dublin.

Ensemble Marsyas have received support from the Irish Arts Council and Creative Scotland and perform regularly at the Wigmore Hall in collaboration with BBC Radio 3. They have also appeared at the Göttingen Handel, East Neuk, Lammermuir, the Great Music in Irish Houses and the Zelenka Festivals.

26 Ensemble Marsyas

Peter Whelan director and harpsichord

Mhairi Lawson Dafne

Callum Thorpe Apollo

Violin Theorbo Oboe Cecilia Bernardini leader Thomas Dunford Katharina Spreckelsen Sijie Chen Alex McCartney Frances Norbury Holly Harman Huw Daniel Baroque Guitar Bassoon Kristen Deeken Alex McCartney Carles Cristobal Peter Whelan Harpsichord Alfonso Leal del Ojo Philippe Grisvard Horn Alec Frank-Gemmill Cello Joe Walters Flute Sarah McMahon Graham O’Sullivan Percussion Bass Alan Emslie Christine Sticher

27 ALSO AVAILABLE ON LINN CKD 543

Ensemble Marsyas Ensemble Marsyas Peter Whelan Pamela Thorby Fasch: Quartets and Zelenka: Sonatas & Ensemble feat. Peter Whelan Concertos Marsyas Telemann: Recorder The Proud Bassoon Sonatas & Fantasias

Irish Baroque Cecilia Bernardini The Avison Ensemble Orchestra & Dunedin Consort Ensemble Reicha: Wind Quintets & Monica Huggett J.S. Bach: Violin Corelli: Concerti Opus 6 feat. Peter Whelan Concertos Concerti Bizarri

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