Georg Friedrich Haendel

George Frederick Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Matheson over the accompaniment to one of Matheson's operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian serious opera. He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing.



"Die ihr aus Dunklen Grüften" is the seventh of a set of nine songs that Handel wrote to the German-language texts of Barthold Heinrich Brockes from his collection Irdisches Vergnuegen in Gott (Contentment on Earth through God). The tone of the text is religious in an easygoing manner. All of these songs are in ABA form with vocal declamation that is lyrical, sometimes melismatic, and never virtuosic. The instrumentation of the accompaniment is flexible, and the performers are allowed to choose whichever instruments are appropriate and available for the continuo and instrumental obbligato.



This song, whose title translates as "You from Dark Shafts" flows in a smooth duple meter. The obbligato sometimes contrasts with and sometimes harmonizes with the vocalist.



Although originally written for Voice (Soprano) and continuo, I created this arrangement for Woodwind Trio (Flute, Oboe & Bassoon).