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Acis and Galatea

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Acis and Galatea CORO CORO Handel: Jephtha Handel: Saul Gilchrist, Bickley, Bevan, Blaze, Purves, Connolly, Murray, Atherton, Brook, Davidson Harvey, Dobell, Budd, Young “Harry Christophers’s “Christopher Purves taut, vibrant, and charms, broods, beautifully sprung fumes implacably, account is bright and plots villainously and dazzling...” confronts his doom bbc music magazine vividly in the manner of a Shakespearean tragedian.” cor16121 cor16103 gramophone ( Recording of the month) Handel: Messiah Handel: Samson Sampson, Wyn-Rogers, Randle, Padmore, Russell, Dawson, Padmore, Purves Wyn-Rogers, George, Best “What a winning “Powerful choral combination: Handel’s singing from The Handel Messiah, the most Sixteen and alert popular oratorio ever playing by the period- written, sung by instrument band The Sixteen, the most make this the most Acis and Galatea richly sonorous of the pleasurable Samson early music choirs.” yet recorded.” Jeremy Budd | Grace Davidson | Stuart Young cor16062 the daily telegraph cor16008 the sunday times Mark Dobell | Simon Berridge To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs | HARRY CHRISTOPHERS visit www.thesixteen.com cor16169 The Sixteen he story of Acis and Galatea, which I (cello) and Alastair Ross (harpsichord and organ) – they are so alert to every nuance T recall vividly from my student days as and the colours they achieve are quite extraordinary. a classicist, comes from Ovid’s charming collection of tales, his Metamorphoses. I regard Acis and Galatea as youthful in every respect. There is a grace, a charm, an Ovid was a great storyteller; the innocence about so much of the writing; it is only the giant Polyphemus who brings myths have a unifying theme – that of terror to the proceedings. It makes me very proud to be able to draw from The Sixteen transformation – of animals turned into five singers who are stylishly eloquent in their respective roles, but also sing as a Photograph: Marco Borggreve Marco Photograph: stone, chaos to harmony, of humans disciplined yet exhilarating and individual ensemble. Grace’s lilting ‘As when the dove’, becoming stars or trees, or, in the case of Jeremy’s lyrical ‘Love in her eyes sits playing’, their youthful exuberance and sheer Acis, into a fountain. The myth has always giddy happiness when they duet in ‘Happy we!’, Mark’s intensely stylish ‘Consider, been a favourite with composers. fond shepherd’ and Simon’s gentle and thoughtful ‘Would you gain the tender creature’ all serve as a delicate tapestry to Stuart’s brilliantly executed ‘O ruddier than the In Handel’s hands the result is a charming pastoral for which he owes much to the cherry’, just enough comedy without resorting to panto buffoonery – you will just librettist John Gay (of Beggar’s Opera fame). He is faithful to Ovid: the drama is have to envisage his ‘capacious mouth’. Of course, the instrumentalists play an equally simple and uncluttered but yet subtly emotional and dramatic. I very much regard personal role. I am in total awe of how Sarah and Dan can sound as one, achieving it as a transition from the masques of Henry Purcell to the full scale oratorios of similar electricity and virtuosity, Hannah’s sensual and intensely musical oboe, Sarah Handel and thus the perfect entertainment to put a spotlight on the wonderful relishing in Handel’s inspirationally comic recorder writing and Joe and Imogen singers and instrumentalists I have within The Sixteen. I have kept true to Handel’s providing a string bass line that is constantly at one with the action around them. original troupe. When he first performed it at Cannons, the estate of James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, he had at his disposal five singers, so only one voice per part, and I feel very pleased to have such talent in front of me; I hope this album conveys the about seven instrumentalists: two violins, two oboes, who also doubled on recorder, abundant enjoyment we had recording it. two cellos and continuo. I have taken the liberty of using my full continuo section which has been so much a part of The Sixteen’s sound world for many years: the unique pairing of David Miller’s archlute with Frances Kelly’s harp, Joe Crouch 2 3 CD2 ACT TWO (49.40) George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) 1 Chorus Wretched lovers! 4.06 2 Accompagnato POLYPHEMUS I rage — I melt — I burn! 1.14 Acis and Galatea 3 Air POLYPHEMUS O ruddier than the cherry 3.03 (c. 1718) 4 Recitative POLYPHEMUS, Whither, fairest 1.03 A Serenata or Pastoral Entertainment GALATEA Libretto by John Gay and others, after Ovid’s Metamorphoses, XIII 5 Air POLYPHEMUS Cease to beauty to be suing 5.18 6 Air CORIDON Would you gain the tender creature 4.57 CD1 ACT ONE (39.23) 7 Recitative ACIS His hideous love 4.52 1 Sinfonia 3.20 Air ACIS Love sounds th’alarm 8 2 Chorus O, the pleasure of the plains! 5.41 Air DAMON Consider, fond shepherd 6.34 9 3 Accompagnato GALATEA Ye verdant plains 0.44 Recitative GALATEA Cease, oh cease 0.26 bl 4 Air GALATEA Hush, ye pretty warbling quire! 6.11 Trio GALATEA, ACIS, The flocks shall leave the mountains 2.18 POLYPHEMUS 5 Air ACIS Where shall I seek the charming fair? 3.31 bm Accompagnato ACIS Help, Galatea! 1.16 6 Recitative DAMON Stay, shepherd, stay! 4.41 bn Air DAMON Shepherd, what art thou pursuing? Chorus Mourn, all ye muses! 3.11 bo 7 Recitative ACIS Lo, here my love 6.20 Solo & Chorus GALATEA Must I my Acis still bemoan 4.09 Air ACIS Love in her eyes sits playing Recitative GALATEA ’Tis done! bp 8 Recitative GALATEA Oh, didst thou know the pains 5.57 Air GALATEA Heart, the seat of soft delight 3.48 Air GALATEA As when the dove bq Chorus Galatea, dry thy tears 3.12 9 Duet GALATEA, ACIS Happy we! 2.51 Total Running Time, 2 CDs 89.03 4 5 for his initial interest in the story was still, being given just one aria to a text by The metamorphoses ofAcis and Galatea Giovanni Bononcini’s one-act work, another member of the Cannons circle, Polifemo, as it was written and performed John Hughes. It seems Gay et al also vid’s Metamorphoses was a Euridice in 1600 and, most famously, by in 1703, during Handel’s sojourn in Italy. drew from the Ovidian story via John O significant source of inspiration Monteverdi as L’ O r f e o in 1607. Handel’s first setting of the tale, as Aci, Dryden’s English translation, The Story to Renaissance painters, poets and Galatea e Polifemo, was undertaken five of Acis, Polyphemus and Galatea, which musicians alike. Ovid’s emphasis on The tale of Acis, Galatea and years later, when he visited Naples in was published in 1717. The publication magical transformations – particularly Polyphemus was another Ovidian piece June 1708, probably as a commission of Dryden’s translation may indeed those of one party amongst would-be – seemingly invented by him – that had from the Duchess of Laurenzano for the have partly been the impetus for the lovers – appealed especially to creators been set several times before Handel wedding of her niece. work. The performance venue might of opera, where both the passion of love came to it. Given his interest in French also have provided inspiration: Brydges’ (often unrequited) and the spectacle of opera (Handel’s overtures, most notably, Handel returned to the story in 1718, lavish building works at Cannons in transformation created opportunities show French influence), Handel may when he was working and living at this period included garden works, for musical and scenic display. Thus have known Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1686 the house of James Brydges, 1st Duke incorporating then-fashionable water Dafne, the tale of Apollo’s pursuit of Acis et Galatée. Of more recent vintage of Chandos, at the palatial estates he features and a jet d’eau. Although it is the nymph and his transformation of was John Eccles and P. A. Motteux’s Acis built at Cannons, where he established not certain where, within the Cannons her into a tree when she continues to and Galatea (1701), which was written an artistic circle to rival those of the estate, the work was first performed, the reject his advances, was what is today for the English spoken-drama theatre, Italian courts. Another of that artistic popular tradition that it was performed considered the first opera, in 1598 (by Drury Lane, and revived regularly into group then based at Cannons, John Gay, on the terrace immediately outside Jacopo Peri). The story of Eurydice the 1720s; to cater for English popular seems chiefly to have provided the text the house and overlooking the garden and Orpheus was the next (where tastes and ‘make the piece the more for this one-act pastoral drama (though might suggest the garden redesign had a metamorphoses are effected on multiple dramatical’, it included a quarrelling it is uncertain how much of the libretto role in the work’s choice and production. levels by Orpheus’s song, which in peasant couple, Roger and Joan. This is his). It initially featured just the three particular recalls Eurydice fleetingly was unlikely to have been a model for main characters, but then had Damon Other inspiration may have come from from death to life); it was set by Peri as Handel, however; a more likely prompt added, while Coridon was inserted later the tradition of English pastoral works 6 7 that had recently graced the London and Galatea, which, from the lack of such music – oboes and recorders a taste of gallantry appropriate to more stage.
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