LIGHT DIVINE INTRODUCTION 1 Concerto in F, HWV 331 George Frideric Handel, [4.18] Aksel and I first met in the Oslo Chamber Music Arr. Mark Bennett Festival in 2016. Aksel had already recorded his 2 Eternal Source of Light Divine, HWV 74 George Frideric Handel [3.10] first album in the UK with the Orchestra of the Age 3 Passacaille from Sonata in G, Op. 5, No. 5, HWV 399 George Frideric Handel [4.54] of Enlightenment and had performed some of the Arr. Mark Bennett more well known music for soprano and trumpet. 4 What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell, HWV 76 George Frideric Handel [8.18] 5 Alla caccia (Diana cacciatrice), HWV 79 George Frideric Handel [6.25] We worked together on a few more projects and Arr. Mark Bennett continued to play these same pieces. A few months were - in Jar Kirke, Oslo, making it all happen. 6 Vien con nuova orribil guerra, from La Statira Tomaso Albinoni [5.33] later I was given some opportunities to direct and Despite the issues of summer holidays and Ornaments by Mark Bennett lead my own productions and I invited Aksel along. various summer festivals, it just all fell into 7 Ciaccona à 7 Philipp Jakob Rittler [4.58] place. It was a miracle. 8 Ritournelle, from Hippolyte et Aricie Jean-Philippe Rameau [1.50] I started to introduce new repertoire to Aksel Arr. Aareskjold/Bennett and he just seemed to thrive on this challenge. The MIN Ensemble, although a modern 9 Entrée d’Abaris, from Les Boréades Jean-Philippe Rameau [3.47] Projects with The Norwegian Radio Orchestra instrument group, were enthusiastic about my 0 Tristes apprêts, from Castor et Pollux Jean-Philippe Rameau [6.20] and the Oslo-based period instrument orchestra more early music approach. With a mixture of Arr. Aareskjold/Bennett Barokkanerne early in 2017 were incredibly modern and baroque instruments we feel very q Ballet figure and Air, from Zoroastre Jean-Philippe Rameau [2.21] successful, and even though Aksel’s voice was proud of the end result. Arr. Mark Bennett changing all the time, I took the chance to invite w Orage, from Platée Jean-Philippe Rameau [2.33] Aksel again for one last project up in the north For me, the approach to the music and not Arr. Aareskjold/Bennett of Norway with the MIN Ensemble in Narvik. just the instruments, has always been 90% of e Je ne sais quel ennui me presse, from Naïs Jean-Philippe Rameau [3.37] playing early music. We made a compromise r Chaconne, from Les Indes galantes Jean-Philippe Rameau [5.43] We had a great time and everything just felt so with only baroque trumpets, baroque flute, Arr. Mark Bennett natural. Aksel and I casually mentioned to Lazar, lute and harpsichord, mixed with modern Total timings: [63.47] the artistic leader of the MIN Ensemble, that strings, oboes and bassoon. We feel that we we would have loved to have had the chance to have bridged the gap to make this amazing The MIN Ensemble • AKSEL RYKKVIN TREBLE record some of this new repertoire. He replied music dance off the page. MARK BENNETT TRUMPET & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR • LAZAR MILETIC ENSEMBLE DIRECTOR with a definite offer and 6 weeks later there we Mark Bennett www.signumrecords.com - 3 - LIGHT DIVINE deadlines, as the extent of the composer’s musical from the composer’s 1720 opera Radamisto. of Queen Anne. In contrast to the dramatic da borrowings – both from himself and others – Reduced down to chamber forces, the dance’s capo aria, thriving off contrast, this through- Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759) and Jean- makes clear. more questioning, episodic central section composed piece maintains its rapt mood and Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – twin musical gains a new angularity and unmoored interest, dignified pace throughout, unfolding in a giants of the 18th century, each the king of We begin with a triumphant trumpet fanfare, while the long melody lines of the outer sections single, glowing musical arc, like a beam of light his own operatic tradition. Near contemporaries, with the opening movement of the Concerto are delicately spun by single strings. pouring through a stained glass window. the two composers both inherited a genre in C HWV 331 – music best known from governed by convention and artifice, each Handel’s Water Music suite in D. The Composed over the course of just 10 days in But if Handel’s time in England focused his bending and softening it into something more original suite was famously composed for King 1739, the Ode for St Cecilia’s Day is another talents in a new direction, his musical style mutable, more human, exploiting not only its George I’s outdoor concert on the Thames, and work that takes advantage of pre-existing remained indebted to his time spent travelling expressive but its dramatic potential. the punchy brilliance of the melodies was material, in this case a set of harpsichord suites in Italy. The secular cantata Diana Cacciatrice, carefully designed to ensure that they carried by Muffat that are ingeniously reinvented by probably composed in 1707, was written at The orchestra too was amplified by both, the long distance to their audience. Handel Handel to quite new effect. Soprano aria “What the request of Handel’s friend and patron the enriched with new colours, instruments and later created a reworking of this suite Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell” pairs Marchese Francesco Maria Ruspoli and premiered rhetoric, and it’s this particular innovation that featuring Horns in F and here, in this specially its solo singer with an obbligato cello – an privately at his country Palazzo outside Rome. emerges most clearly here in a programme that arranged version by Mark Bennett, we see the idealised musical portrait of Jubal’s lyre, the The Marchese was an enthusiastic hunter, and sets music from Rameau’s operas alongside re-emergence of the trumpets, but this time “chorded shell” from which he draws his “celestial though the cantata nominally celebrates Diana, Handel’s concert works, putting solo woodwind, in C major. Cast in three sections, this da sound”. The exquisite vocal line is, in many ways, goddess of hunting, in its martial rhythms, strings and trumpet in the spotlight alongside capo-like movements sets a minor-key middle simply a foil for the gilded, filigree ornamentation galloping semiquavers and horn-calls (rendered the solo voice. section between the blazing joy and energy of of the cello writing, which embellishes without by a solo trumpet rather than a horn) it’s also the outer parts, built around an urgent dialogue ever weighing the melody down. an elegant homage to Ruspoli himself. Although steeped in the Italian tradition of between the trumpet – the instigator of opera, the Handel we meet here is very much each lively, combative exchange – and the rest The relationship between solo voice and The trumpet is also at the fore in Tomaso the adoptive Englishman, producing music to of the orchestra. obbligato trumpet in the composer’s “Eternal Albinoni’s “Vien con nuova orribil guerra”. serve the tastes and pursuits of his wealthy Source of Light Divine” is a very different Although the prolific composer produced over patrons, works intended to entertain but also The later Trio Sonata in G major HWV 399 is one. The trumpet may echo and amplify the 50 operas for the Venice, only two survive to reflect the wealth, taste, nobility and faith of another musical magpie, this time stealing singer, but remains a supporting player rather complete, including La Statira – the source of their commissioners. More pragmatically, these themes from Handel’s operas and ballet music. than an equal in this striking lovely opening this rousing martial aria. Written for the 1726 were functional works often composed to tight The graceful, lilting Passacaille takes its melody movement from Handel’s Ode for the Birthday Carnival season, the opera explores the rivalry - 4 - - 5 - between Statira and Barsimo as they do battle new dramatic breadth and boldness. Composer Alphise. The bittersweet Entrée from Act IV of implied, but never fully realised. Bassoons, often for the Persian throne. Throwing down the Andre Campra even went so far as to declare, Les Boreades, coloured similarly by bassoons, crooning high in their register, once again add gauntlet in rippling semiquaver runs, the aria prophetically, that, “There is enough music in sees him on the brink of suicide, the tumbling their plangent, wordless voices to the soprano – threatens war in the most elegant of musical this opera to make 10 of them. This man will string phrases trickling down like tears. an echo, perhaps, of the voice of Castor himself? terms. The white brilliance of the C major key eclipse us all”. allows the trumpet – both the voice’s support Despair turn to horror in the Air Grave from “Je ne sais quel ennui me presse” from Nais and its musical rival – to shine brightly, And so began as astonishingly rich and fruitful Act IV of Zoroastre. A jagged descending string – Rameau’s 1749 pastorale heroique – is an disappearing in the brief central section only late-flowering of stage works wedding the figure carves out the start of the movement altogether lighter affair. Even the opening to return with renewed impact for the da capo. musical fluidity of French baroque with the like a lightning bolt through the sky, conjuring bars, with their distinctive bagpipe-like colouring orchestral weight and interest of Italian opera, the horrifying spectacle (which would have and sustained drone, establish us far from An instrumental divertissement comes in the taking a divertissement and amplifying it into been depicted by dancers in this “ballet figure”) the central musical drama with its elevated form of Czech composer and priest Philipp a music-drama.