Handel - L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato / The Choice of Hercules (Robert King)

Posted By : Sowulo | Date : 30 Dec 2011 14:10:57 | Comments : 4 |

Handel - L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato / The Choice of Hercules /
Maurice Greene – Hearken unto me, ye holy children (Robert King)
EAC Rip | FLAC, IMG+CUE, LOG | Covers | Hyperion | 3cd, 877.53 MB

“

George Frideric Handel (German: Georg Friedrich Händel; pronounced [ˈhɛndəl]) (23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music. He received critical musical training in Halle, Hamburg and Italy before settling in London (1712) and becoming a naturalised British subject in 1727.[1] By then he was strongly influenced by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.

Within fifteen years, Handel, a dramatic genius, started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, but the public came to hear the vocal bravura of the soloists rather than the music. In 1737 he had a physical breakdown, changed direction creatively and addressed the middle class. As Alexander's Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742) he never performed an Italian opera again. Handel was only partly successful with his performances of English Oratorio on mythical or biblical themes, but when he arranged a performance of Messiah to benefit the Foundling Hospital (1750) the critique ended. The pathos of Handel's oratorio is an ethical one, they are hallowed not by liturgical dignity but by the moral ideals of humanity.[2] Almost blind, and having lived in England for almost fifty years, he died a respected and rich man.

Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, not only because of his Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. But since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and original instrument interest in Handel's opera seria has revived too. Handel composed forty operas in about thirty years; some are considered as masterpieces, with many sweeping arias and much admired improvisations. His operas contain remarkable human characterization, by a composer not known for his love affairs.

from Wikipedia

”

Handel - L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato [1999]
Catalog Number: CDA67283/4 | 2cd, 575.99 MB

“

Handel's oratorios may be loaded with wonderful music, but their librettos have tended to draw some sniping. It's true that some of them can be rather banal, but others are very impressive--the biblical texts Charles Jennens assembled for Messiah and Israel in Egypt, for example, and John Dryden's ode Alexander's Feast. One particularly inspired idea Handel's colleagues had was to take excerpts from John Milton's poems "L'Allegro" (about the joys of sophisticated hedonism) and "Il Penseroso" (about the joys of contemplative solitude) and interweave them to make a sort of musical debate. At Handel's request, Jennens wrote a concluding section titled "Il Moderato," which unites the two opposing temperaments under the guidance of "Sweet Temp'rance." The result is one of Handel's most colorful scores, with such treats as a robust aria with hunting horns, a laughter chorus, a gentle duet for soprano and cello, and arias and choruses with featured parts for trumpets, organ, and even the tinkling bells of a carillon. Not to mention "Sweet bird," one of the very greatest "birdsong" arias, in which a flute imitates a bird and a soprano imitates the flute. How odd, then, that this is only the second recording of L'Allegro in 20 years. Luckily, it's a good one. Conductor Robert King and his orchestra and choir do their work well, certainly, but it's the soloists who make this performance special. Lorna Anderson does a lovely "Sweet bird" with a particularly good trill; soprano Susan Gritton sounds sweeter and more eloquent than ever; and the fabulous tenor Paul Agnew uses an amazing range of tone colors, from angelic purity to intimidating harshness. All in all, this L'Allegro is good enough to silence any grumbling about what took Hyperion so long to record it. --Matthew Westphal

”

Tracklisting:
CD1
1. OVERTURE [Grave]: Allegro - Lentement - Allegro Moderato
2. PART ONE. Accompagnato: Hence, loathed Melancholy
3. Accompagnato: Hence, vain deluding Joys
4. Air: Come, thou goddess fair and free
5. Air: Come rather, goddess, sage and holy
6. Air & Chorus: Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
7. Air & Chorus: Come and trip it as you go
8. Accompagnato: Come, pensive nun, devout and pure
9. Air: Come, but keep thy wonted state
10. Accompagnato & Chorus: There, held in holy passion still
11. Recitative: Hence, loathed Melancholy!
12. Air: Mirth, admit me of thy crew
13. Accompagnato: First and chief, on golden wing
14. Air: Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of Folly
15. Recitative: If I give thee honour due
16. Air: Mirth, admit me of thy crew
17. Air: Oft on a plat of rising ground
18. Air: Far from all resort of mirth
19. Recitative: If I give thee honour due
20. Air: Let me wander not unseen
21. Air: Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
22. Accompagnato: Mountains, on whose barren breast
23. Air & Chorus: Or let the merry bells ring round
CD2
1. PART TWO. Accompagnato: Hence, vain deluding Joys
2. Air: Sometimes let gorgeous tragedy
3. Air: But O, sad virgin, that thy pow'r
4. Air: Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career
5. Chorus: Populous cities please me then
6. Air: There let Hymen oft appear
7. Accompagnato: Me, when the sun begins to fling
8. Air: Hide me from Day's garish eye
9. Air: I'll to the well-trod stage anon
10. Air: And ever against eating cares
11. Air: Orpheus' self may heave his head
12. Air & Chorus: These delights if thou canst give
13. Recitative: But let my due feet never fail
14. Chorus: There let the pealing organ blow
15. Air: May at last my weary age
16. Fugue: Organo ad libitum
17. Chorus: These pleasures, Melancholy, give
18. PART THREE. Accompagnato: Hence! boast not, ye profane
19. Air: Come, with native lustre shine
20. Accompagnato & Chorus: Sweet Temp'rance
21. Air: Come, with gentle hand restrain
22. Recitative: No more short life they then will spend
23. Air: Each action will derive new grace
24. Duet: As steals the morn upon the night
25. Chorus: Thy pleasures, Moderation, give

Performer:
Susan Gritton (soprano)
Lorna Anderson (soprano)
Claron McFadden (soprano)
Paul Agnew (tenor)
Neal Davies (bass)
The King’s Consort
Choir of the King’s Consort
Conductor - Robert King

Handel - The Choice of Hercules / Maurice Greene – Hearken unto me, ye holy children [2002]
Catalog Number: CDA67298 | 1cd, 301.54 MB

“

Throughout his life Handel was an inveterate recycler both of other people's music and his own; The Choice of Hercules (1751) consists for the most part of music he wrote the year before for Tobias Smollett's Alceste, a play intended for Covent Garden's 1750 season but never performed. Unwilling to see his efforts go to waste, Handel contrived an hour-long "interlude" based on a poem by Joseph Spence and probably adapted by his regular librettist Thomas Morell. The story is a slight slice of classical mythology: Hercules must choose between the temptations of Pleasure or the righteousness of Virtue. The outcome is hardly a surprise, and only in 18th-century theater could Hercules plausibly be portrayed as a castrato, but the story is merely a flimsy excuse for a succession of splendid solo arias and choruses.
With the exception of a small tenor part (here sung by Charles Daniels), the soloists are all in the high register (soprano, mezzo, and countertenor), yet their music is of such variety of color that there's no sense of sameness. The very compactness of the score ensures that there are no dull moments, but especially outstanding are Virtue's stately "Go, assert thy heav'nly race," a dotted-rhythm Purcellian chorus, "So shalt thou gain immortal praise," and Hercules's limpid "Yet can I hear that dulcet lay."
Maurice Greene's 1728 anthem Hearken unto Me, Ye Holy Children is a welcome makeweight, though inevitably perhaps it seems rather foursquare when placed next to Handel's exuberant invention. Robert King and his King's Consort are Handelians par excellence, of course. Susan Gritton, Alice Coote, and Robin Blaze are a secure trio of soloists in the Handel, and bass Peter Harvey joins for the Greene. The result is an important addition to Hyperion's marvelous Handel series. --Mark Walker

”

Tracklisting:
1. Handel: The Choice Of Hercules, HWV 69: Sinfonia
2. Accompagnato PLEASURE: See Hercules! how smiles yon myrtle plain
3. Air PLEASURE: Come, blooming boy
4. Air PLEASURE: There the brisk sparkling nectar drain
5. Solo & Chorus PLEASURE: While for thy arms that beauty glows
6. Recitative VIRTUE: Away, mistaken wretch, away!
7. Air VIRTUE: This manly youth's exalted mind
8. Recitative VIRTUE: Rise, youth! exalt thyself and me!
9. Air VIRTUE: Go, assert thy heav'nly race
10. Recitative VIRTUE: In peace, in war
11. Solo & Chorus VIRTUE: So shalt thou gain immortal praise
12. Recitative PLEASURE: Hearst thou, what dangers then thou must engage?
13. Solo & Chorus PLEASURE: Turn thee, youth, to joy and love
14. Recitative PLEASURE/HERCULES: Short is my way, fair, easy, smooth and plain
15. Air HERCULES: Yet, can I hear that dulcet lay
16. Air ATTENDANT ON PLEASURE: Enjoy the sweet Elysian grove
17. Recitative HERCULES: Oh! whither, reason, dost thou fly?
18. Trio HERCULES/PLEASURE/VIRTUE: Where Shall I Go?
19. Recitative VIRTUE: Mount, mount the steep ascent
20. Air VIRTUE: Mount, mount the steep ascent
21. Chorus: Arise! mount the steep ascent
22. Recitative HERCULES: The sounds breathe fire celestial
23. Air HERCULES: Lead, goddess, lead the way!
24. Chorus: Virtue will place thee in that blest abode
25. Greene: Hearken Unto Me. Solo (RB): Hearken unto me, ye holy children
26. Chorus: Magnify his name
27. Chorus: And in praising Him you shall say
28. Solo (CD):To be a father to the fatherless
29. Duet (RB, CD): Therefore shall he receive a glorious kingdom
30. Recitative (PH): How is he numb'red
31. Solo (PH): His name shall endure for ever
32. Chorus: Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers

Performer:
George Frederick Handel (1685 - 1759) - The Choice of Hercules
Pleasure - Susan Gritton (soprano)
Virtue - Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)
Hercules - Robin Blaze (countertenor)
Attendant on Pleasure - Charles Daniels (tenor)

Maurice Greene (1696 - 1755) – Hearken unto me, ye holy children
Robin Blaze (countertenor)
Charles Daniels (tenor)
Peter Harvey (bass)
The King’s Consort
Choir of the King’s Consort
Conductor - Robert King