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5 FEBRUARY THURSDAY SERIES 7 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 5 FEBRUARY THURSDAY SERIES 7 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 Paul Agnew, conductor & tenor soloist Katherine Watson, soprano ARMIDA ABBANDONATA Jean-Baptiste Lully: Armide Overture Gavotte & Ganerie Menuet & Gavotte Renaud’s aria: Les plus aimables fleurs Armide’s aria: Enfin il est dans ma puissance Air I Passacaglia Prelude La Haine Recitative: “Renaud! Ciel!” Le perfide Renaud Prelude Carl Heinrich Graun: Armida Scena Ottava Armida’s aria George Frideric Handel: Rinaldo Overture Gigue Recitative: Dunque i lacci d’un volto Aria: Ah Crudel Sinfonia Aria: Vo’ far guerra INTERVAL 20 min 1 Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 85 “La Reine” (The Queen) I Adagio – Vivace II Romance (Allegretto) III Minuet (Allegretto) IV Presto Joseph Haydn: Armida (Dramma eroico in tre atti) Sinfonia Recitative: Parti Rinaldo Armida’s aria: Se pietade avete Rinaldo’s aria Armida’s recitative Armida’s aria Interval at about 20.00. The concert ends at about 21.20. Broadcast live on Yle Teema, Yle Radio 1 and streamed at yle.fi/rso. 2 ARMIDA Contemporary readers of course had no difficulty spotting the links between ABBANDONATA the epic and the religious wars of their own day. In addition to this obvious Armida first appeared in world literature surface link, the work could be read in in 1581, in the monumental epic poem another way. The Council of Trent held La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem between 1545 and 1563 as a reaction to Delivered) by the Renaissance Italian the Reformation then pushing north- poet Torquato Tasso (1544–1595). She wards bred the Counter-Reformation, is a witch endowed with magic pow- and Jerusalem Delivered may also be ers who joins the Saracens in the fight seen as a comment on this. against the Christian Franks who have captured Jerusalem. Armida attacks the Christians hold- JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY ing Jerusalem. One of them is the brave (1632–1687): SCENES hero Rinaldo. Just as she is about to kill him, he finds himself bewitched by her FROM THE OPERA beauty and falls in love with her. She ARMIDE takes him prisoner in her secret gar- den. Their feelings are mutual, though Armide (1686) was to be the last of the each is tormented by the conflict be- operas penned by Jean-Baptiste Lully tween love and duty. Rinaldo’s fellow and his most distinguished librettist warriors Ubaldo and Carlo discover Philippe Quinault. It fell into the cat- him and by holding a reflecting shield egory of a tragédie en musique – one in front of him force him to see him- of the major genres of the French self. Rinaldo remembers his duty and Baroque and one of Lully’s own crea- abandons Armida despite her entreat- tion. Armide was its crowning glory. ies. She thereupon asks an army of de- Les plus aimables fleurs depicts Renaud mons to destroy her magic palace and (alias Rinaldo) in Armide’s garden and flies back to the Saracen camp at Gaza. is bewitched by her beauty. Her mon- The story of heroes locked in a love- ologue Enfin il est en ma puissance ex- hate relationship does, however, have a presses her conflicting emotions: she happy ending when, at the end of the holds Renaud in her power but she poem, the battle having been won by cannot kill him. Lully’s contemporaries, the Christians, they meet again and are and later such composers as Rameau, reconciled as the tears flow. regarded this intense scene of varying When Tasso wrote his epic, there emotions as a model example of the was still great tension between the expressive power of the French recita- Christians and Muslims – even more so tive. The end of the opera is shot with than during the Crusades. In the 16th anguish as first Renaud departs despite century, the mighty Ottoman Empire Armide’s entreaties (Renaud! Ciel!) and had spread west as far as Budapest. then Armide, now alone, pours out her 3 feelings in noble, solemn and heart- failed to meet with royal approval. The rending tones (Le perfide Renaud). operas of Graun dominated the Berlin repertoire right up to the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756. CARL HEINRICH GRAUN Armida, Graun’s three-act dramma (1704–1759). SCENES per musica, was first performed to great acclaim at the Berlin Court Theatre in FROM THE OPERA March 1751. ARMIDA Philippe Quinalt’s libretto also served GEORGE FRIDERIC Carl Heinrich Graun, a German com- HANDEL (1685–1759) poser, for his opera Armide, though in a remodelled Italian version by Leopoldo SCENES FROM THE de Villati. Graun was, along with Johann OPERA RINALDO Adolf Hasse, a leading representative of Italian opera in the Germany of the Like Hasse and Graun, George Frideric Baroque. He entered the service of Handel turned away from his German Frederick the Great in 1735 and when heritage in favour of Italian opera, but Frederick became King of Prussia in unlike them, he spent his working life 1740 was raised to the status of roy- in England. He arrived in London for al Kapellmeister. Almost one of the the first time in 1710, and the first of first things Graun did was to establish the operas he wrote there was Rinaldo. Italian opera in Berlin, and to this end It was premiered in February 1711 and he embarked on a long visit to Italy in was a tremendous success, partly order to recruit singers. This also gave thanks to the visually splendid produc- him a chance to become more deeply tion making effective use of the very acquainted with the Italian style, the latest stage technology. melodic and expressive ideals of which The overture begins in the French he duly adopted. style with a slow, dotted Largo followed From 1742 onwards Graun com- by a quick section beginning in contra- posed no fewer than 26 operas for puntal mode. The overture does, how- the court theatre in Berlin, among ever, also have some solo elements, the best-known of which are the in- and the quick section is followed by an augural one Cleopatra e Cesare (1742), Adagio dominated by a solo oboe and a Artaserse (1743) and Montezuma (1754). dance-like Allegro. Frederick the Great was a considerable The recitative Dunque i lacci d’un vol- musician, both a flautist and a com- to with orchestral accompaniment (re- poser, and he took an active part in citativo accompagnato at the end of Graun’s work. Time and again Graun the second act gives vent to Armida’s was obliged to sit in his gilded cage conflicting emotions on finding her- rewriting arias when the first versions self unable to kill Rinaldo. With it is the 4 intense aria Ah crudel with momentary its use of the same material for both quick virtuoso flourishes and the extra the main and the second theme. The colour of an oboe and bassoon. In the third movement is a Minuet in which aria Vo’ far guerra that ends act two she ceremonial outer sections sandwich an declares war, and at this point the harp- idyllic Trio, and the finale is a sparkling sichord has a chance to show off in im- Rondo such as was typical of Haydn. provised passages which Handel him- self performed in his day. JOSEPH HAYDN: SCENES FROM THE JOSEPH HAYDN OPERA ARMIDA (1732–1809): SYMPHONY NO. 85, Though best known as a master of “LA REINE” the symphony and the string quartet, Haydn also had a long career in opera. The six “Paris Symphonies” (82–87) He spent nearly 30 years from 1761 composed by Haydn in 1785–1786 for in the service of the Esterházy princ- Le Concert de la Loge Olympique in es, and between 1776 and 1790, opera the French capital marked the climax was his chief occupation, rehearsing of his career to date as a symphonist. and conducting the performances at He was already a complete master of the family’s private theatre. All in all he symphonic style, and each of the Paris composed some 20 operas, 13 of which symphonies is a unique masterpiece. have been preserved. Armida, com- No. 85 is the only one with a name. posed in 1783, was the last of the ope- It became known as La Reine (The ras he composed for the Esterházys. Queen) because it was the special fa- It is a dramma eroico in three acts, in vourite of Marie Antoinette. When she practice a serious opera. heard it, she was enjoying the last of The overture to Armida incorpo- her years in favour, for only a few years rates music from the events about to later she would be relieved of her sta- be acted out. It leaps straight in with tus by the French Revolution, and on the final stages of the fights between October 16, 1793 her head. the Christians and the Saracens. In the Haydn’s symphony is still free from accompanied recitative Parti Rinaldo any hint of revolution. The short intro- of the first act Armida is battling with duction to the first movement with its her love and sense of duty, and in the dotted rhythms reminiscent of a French aria Se pietade avete she begs the overture and the slow Romance, a set gods to bring Rinaldo home from war of variations on the French folk song alive. Their conflicting interests are ex- La gentile et jeune Lisette may have pressed in their joint recitative and the been conscious gestures of respect by following duet Cara, sarò fedele that Haydn to his host country. One nota- ends act one. ble feature of the first movement is 5 The opera Armida reveals Haydn’s Orchestra, been Music Director of the striving to link together accompanied Orchestre Français des Jeunes Baroque recitatives and arias to create dramat- and coached singers at the Le Jardin ic continuity.
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