George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (1685 – 1759)
was a German-British Baroque composer well known for
his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and
organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle
and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before
settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of
his career and became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the
middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by
composers of the Italian Bar...(+)
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (1685 – 1759)
was a German-British Baroque composer well known for
his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and
organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle
and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before
settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of
his career and became a naturalised British subject in
1727. He was strongly influenced both by the
middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by
composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's
music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque"
style, bringing Italian opera to its highest
development, creating the genres of English oratorio
and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into
English church music. He is consistently recognized as
one of the greatest composers of his age.
After spending some of his early career composing
operas and other pieces in Italy, he settled in London,
where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the
first time with his opera Rinaldo. A tremendous
success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian
opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo
arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel
was appointed music director of an organisation called
the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the
present day London conservatoire), a company under
royal charter to produce Italian operas in London.
Handel was not only to compose operas for the company
but hire the star singers, supervise the orchestra and
musicians, and adapt operas from Italy for London
performance.
The Royal Academy of Music collapsed at the end of the
1728–29 season, partly due to the huge fees paid to
the star singers, and the two prima donnas who had
appeared in Handel's last few operas, Francesca Cuzzoni
and Faustina Bordoni both left London for engagements
in continental Europe. Handel went into partnership
with John James Heidegger, the theatrical impresario
who held the lease on the King's Theatre in the
Haymarket where the operas were presented and started a
new opera company with a new prima donna, Anna Strada.
One of Handel's librettists, Paolo Rolli, wrote in a
letter (the original is in Italian) that Handel said
that Strada "sings better than the two who have left
us, because one of them (Faustina) never pleased him at
all and he would like to forget the other
(Cuzzoni)."
Lotario ("Lothair", HWV 26) is an opera seria in three
acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language
libretto was adapted from Antonio Salvi's Adelaide.The
opera was first given at the King's Theatre in London
on 2 December 1729. The story of the opera is a
fictionalisation of some events in the life of Holy
Roman Empress Adelaide of Italy. The story of Lotario
is, in modern terms, a "prequel" to Handel's previous
opera Ottone with many of the same characters at an
earlier part of their lives. In fact, the character of
Lotario was referred to in Handel's manuscript score as
"Ottone" since it is based on the same person, the
historical Otto the Great, but the name was changed
part way through composition, probably to avoid
confusion with Handel's earlier, highly successful,
piece.
Paolo Rolli commented in a letter at the time to
Giuseppe Riva that "everyone thinks (Lotario) a very
bad opera". There were 10 performances, but it was not
repeated. Handel reused pieces in later operas. As with
all Baroque opera seria, Lotario went unperformed for
many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque
music and historically informed musical performance
since the 1960s, Lotario, like all Handel operas,
receives performances at festivals and opera houses
today. Among other performances, Lotario was staged at
the London Handel Festival in 1999, by the Handel
Festival, Halle in 2004 and by the Stadttheater Bern,
Switzerland, in 2019.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotario).
Although originally scored for Violini, Altos & Bassi I
created this Interpretation of the Aria "Non pensi
quell' altera" from "Lotario" (HWV 26 Act 1 No. 2) for
String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC