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CHAN 0620 Front.qxd 9/10/07 11:43 am Page 1 Chan 0620 CHACONNE HandelHandel Tra le fiamme Italian cantatas & trio sonatas The Purcell Quartet Catherine Bott The Purcell Quartet CHANDOS early music CHAN 0620 BOOK.qxd 9/10/07 11:45 am Page 2 George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Sonata for two violins and strings, Op. 5 No. 4†‡ 13:22 in G major . G-Dur . sol majeur 1 I Allegro 1:54 2 II A tempo ordinario – Allegro non presto 4:14 3 III Passacaille 4:15 AKG 4 IV Gigue: Presto 1:10 5 V Menuet: Allegro moderato 1:44 Tra le fiamme*‡§ 20:14 6 Aria: Tra le fiamme – 6:46 (Among the flames) 7 Recitativo: Dedalo già le fortunate penne – (Once Daedalus wove the fatal wings) Aria: Pien di nuovo e bel diletto 6:25 (Filled with the new and beautiful delight) 8 Recitativo: Sì, sì, pur troppo è vero – (Yes, yes, it is too true) Aria: Voli per l’aria 3:53 (Flying in the air) George Frideric Handel 9 Recitativo: L’uomo che nacque per salire – (Man who was born to aspire) Aria: Tra le fiamme 3:04 (Among the flames) 3 CHAN 0620 BOOK.qxd 9/10/07 11:45 am Page 4 Sonata for two violins and strings, Op. 5 No. 7†‡ 9:13 Sonata for two violins and strings, Op. 2 No. 5†‡ 10:05 in B flat major . B-Dur . si bémol majeur in G minor . g-Moll . sol mineur 10 I Larghetto 2:02 19 I Larghetto 2:20 11 II Allegro, ma non presto 2:05 20 II Allegro 2:33 12 III Adagio – Allegro 1:42 21 III Adagio 1:55 13 IV Gavotte: Allegro 1:22 22 IV Allegro 3:13 14 V Menuet: Andante allegro 1:59 TT 69:47 Catherine Bott soprano* Notte placida e cheta*†‡ 16:39 The Purcell Quartet 15 Recitativo: Notte placida e cheta – Robert Woolley harpsichord† (Calm and quiet night) Catherine Mackintosh • Catherine Weiss violins‡ Aria: Zeffiretti, deh! venite 7:21 Richard Boothby viola da gamba/violoncello‡ (Come, of ye zephyrs) with 16 Recitativo: Momento fortunato – Caroline Kershaw • Jane Downer recorders/oboes§ (Happy moment) Tim Amherst violone§ Aria: Per un istante 3:10 Jonathan Manson violoncello§ (For an instant) 17 Recitativo accompagnato: Ma già sento – (But now I feel) Aria: Luci belle 3:31 (Fair eyes) 18 Recitativo accompagnato: Oh delizie d’amor – (O delights of love) Aria: Che non si dà qua 2:29 (That no pleasing peace) 4 5 CHAN 0620 BOOK.qxd 9/10/07 11:45 am Page 6 recorder Caroline Kershaw Bressan copy by P. Prescott Jane Downer Denner copy by Fred Morgan Handel: Italian Cantatas & Trio Sonatas oboe Caroline Kershaw Copy of P. Paulhahn by Paul Hailperin Jane Downer Copy of P. Paulhahn by Toshi Hasegawa violin Catherine Mackintosh by Antonio Mariani, Pesaro 1670 The Cantatas part was written for the eminent German Catherine Weiss by Thomas Enerle, Naples 1770 Nearly all of Handel’s cantatas were player Ernst Christian Hesse, an earlier violoncello Richard Boothby by James Mackay after Andrea Amati, 1565 composed during his years in Italy, most of acquaintance of Handel’s, who was visiting Jonathan Manson Anon. English 18th century them for concerts at the homes of his various Italy in 1708). This would suggest a violone Tim Amherst by Michael Heale after Amati noble patrons, where (as his first biographer composition date of spring 1708. There are viola da gamba Richard Boothby* by Jane Julier 1992, after Nicholas Bertrand put it) he was ‘desired to furnish his quota’ of three arias, separated by recitatives. The use harpsichord Robert Woolley Single-manual after Grimaldi c. 1700 by such pieces. They were popular in particular of the viol is varied and enterprising: for an M. Ransom and C. Hammett in Rome, where opera was at the time obbligato part, often in dialogue with the forbidden. Most are written simply for voice voice in the opening aria, for a largely Harpsichord tuned, maintained and provided by Mark Ransom and continuo but there are more than continuo function but also as a middle voice Pitch A = 415 twenty, no doubt intended for larger-scale in the second, and in the third playing an *Tra le fiamme only occasions, that call for additional almost continuous, fast-moving instruments; both the cantatas recorded here accompaniment. The text – which tells the come into that category. tale of Daedalus and Icarus, clearly with Tra le fiamme (Among the flames) is allegorical implications (pointed up by the exceptional in its colourful instrumentation. repeat at the end of the main section of the Besides first and second violins, it calls for a first aria) – is by Cardinal Benedetto pair of recorders, oboes and a solo viola da Pamphili, one of Handel’s Roman patrons, so gamba. There is no firm information about was presumably intended for an event at the its date of composition, but this unusual and Pamphili residence. Handel drew, for the extravagant combination of instruments opening music, on an instrumental piece indicates that it was written about the time from his 1707 opera Rodrigo, and for the of the oratorio La resurrezione, for that work final aria on the cantata Apollo e Dafne; both too makes use of a viola da gamba – an had been composed in Florence about a year instrument that was a rarity in Italy (it has before. Later, in turn, he drew on several of been suggested, by Julie Anne Sadie, that the the arias here in his London operas. 6 7 CHAN 0620 BOOK.qxd 9/10/07 11:45 am Page 8 Notte placida e cheta (Calm and quiet late Baroque chamber music. Two sets of be seen in Handel’s choice of movement the ensuing brief Adagio. Then follows a night) can probably be dated to August Handel’s trio sonatas were assembled, types. fugal Allegro, revised from the anthem O Sing 1708, on the strength of a surviving bill from probably by his London publisher, John Op. 5 No. 4 is made up of music from the unto the Lord a new Song, and two dances, a copyist; it is likely to have been sung at the Walsh, who printed them: his Op. 2 (six early-middle 1730s. The opening two again drawn from Handel’s recent theatrical Sunday evening recitals at the palace in sonatas) at the beginning of the 1730s, his movements (the second a kind of French works. Rome or the country home at Vignanello of Op. 5 (seven sonatas) in 1739. Much of their overture) were originally the overture to Op. 2 No. 5 is wholly ‘da chiesa’, though the Marquis Ruspoli, where the soprano music, however, was composed a good deal Athalia, the oratorio Handel performed at it is never likely actually to have been used in Margherita Durastanti – later a member of earlier, in particular during Handel’s years at Oxford in 1733; he also used some of this church in England. Its opening movement Handel’s opera company in London – often Cannons, just before 1720. There are many music in the serenata for a royal wedding, goes back to Handel’s first London opera, performed. The poet is unknown. This movements in the trio sonatas adapted from Parnasso in festa, of 1734. The Passacaille here Rinaldo (1711), and its principal theme was cantata too has unusual features. It consists Cannons works, especially the Chandos belongs to that work but to others as well, used too in an organ concerto. The Allegro of four arias, each preceded by a recitative. anthems, and even earlier ones, sometimes and the last two movements were originally seems to have been composed specially for Two of the recitatives have instrumental dating back to Handel’s time in Italy. written as ballet music in the operas of these this trio sonata and it is an idiomatic if accompaniment. The first aria has some The eighteenth-century trio sonata years when Handel had Marie Sallé’s dance demanding piece of three-part string attractive tone-painting (of the word repertory, across the whole of Europe but troupe appearing with him at Covent counterpoint, fully worked out. After a fairly ‘mormorando’, ‘murmuring’), and the third perhaps more pervasively in England than Garden. The Passacaille is an extended brief Adagio, the sonata ends with a (‘Luci belle’) is accompanied only by anywhere else, was dominated by the four movement loosely constructed on a ground movement that clearly, in one form or continuo but with what is in effect an sets, each of twelve works, published by bass, which in Purcellian fashion slips for a another, was a favourite of Handel’s, to judge obbligato cello part. Then the final aria is Corelli between 1681 and 1694. These while into the minor. by his recycling of it: the version here makes fugal in style, the voice taking a role in the works, universally regarded as models of That sonata is more of the ‘da camera’ particular play with imitative three-part contrapuntal interplay along with the two stylistic purity, dictated the manner and the type, consisting principally of dances, than writing, with much lively violin passage- violins and the continuo group; Handel procedures followed by most composers, the ‘da chiesa’; Op. 5 No. 7 draws on both, work. borrowed the thematic material here from including to a considerable extent Handel. starting ‘da chiesa’ style and then turning to another cantata, Tu fedel? Tu costante?, The sonatas here reflect the Corelli model in dances. It begins with a spacious Larghetto © 1998 Stanley Sadie written shortly before.