Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick
Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's
"Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love
that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and
resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like
the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music,
and perhaps Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English
oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely
known in his own time, are the province mainly of
specialists in Baroque music, ...(+)
Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick
Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's
"Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love
that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and
resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like
the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music,
and perhaps Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English
oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely
known in his own time, are the province mainly of
specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his
life, even though they reflected some of the most
important musical issues of the day, have never become
as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps
the single word that best describes his life and music
is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in
Italy, who spent most of his life in England.
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.
Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic
masterpieces for London stages: Ottone, Serse (Xerxes),
and other works often based on classical stories. His
popularity was dented, though, by new English-language
works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and
1740s Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that
attracted England's new middle-class audiences. Not
only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul,
and many other works established him as a venerated
elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to
maximum effect Handel's melodic gift and the sense of
timing he brought to big choral numbers. Among the most
popular of all the oratorios was Judas Maccabeus,
composed in 32 days in 1746. Handel presented the
oratorio six times during its first season and about 40
times before his death 12 years later, conducting it 30
times himself. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which
caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and
some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered
sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was
urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind
in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London
on April 14, 1759. Beethoven thought Handel the
greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, "I
would bare my head and kneel at his grave."
Orlando (HWV 31) is an opera seria in three acts by
George Frideric Handel written for the second Royal
Academy of Music. The Italian-language libretto was
adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's L'Orlando after
Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was also the
source of Handel's operas Alcina and Ariodante.
The opera was first given at the King's Theatre in
London on 27 January 1733. There were 10 performances
and it was not revived. The first modern production was
at the Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon, on 6 May 1959. A
further production staged by the Barber Institute in
Birmingham in 1966, conducted by Anthony Lewis, with
Janet Baker in the title role, brought the opera back
to London for the first time in over two centuries with
performances later the same year at Sadler's Wells. The
United States premiere of the opera was presented by
the Handel Society of New York (HSNY) in a concert
version on 18 January 1971 at Carnegie Hall. Stephen
Simon conducted the performance with Rosalind Elias in
the title role, Camilla Williams as Angelica, Betty
Allen as Medoro, Carole Bogard as Dorinda, and Justino
Díaz as Zoroastro. The HSNY had made the first
recording of the opera in 1970 in Vienna with a mostly
different cast for RCA Red Seal Records. Peter Sellars
directed the first staged production of the work in the
United States at the American Repertory Theater on 19
December 1981. Countertenor Jeffrey Gall sang the title
role and Craig Smith conducted.
"Fammi combattere" (Send me into battle) is from Act I,
Scene 1 and although originally written for voice(s) &
orchestra, I created this arrangement for Oboe &
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION