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.
Admeto, re di Tessaglia ("Admetus, King of Thessaly",
HWV 22) is a three-act opera written for the Royal
Academy of Music with music composed by George Frideric
Handel to an Italian-language libretto prepared by
Nicola Francesco Haym. The story is partly based on
Euripides' Alcestis. The opera's first performance was
at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 31 January 1727.
The original cast included Faustina Bordoni as Alcestis
and Francesca Cuzzoni as Antigona, as Admeto was the
second of the five operas that Handel composed to
feature specifically these two prime donne of the
day.[1]
The opera was very successful at its first
performances. However the presence of two prima donnas
in the London operas had created factions of very
partisan supporters of either one or the other ladies,
and some performances were disrupted by hisses and loud
cat calls by supporters of one of the star sopranos
whenever the other one was singing, creating public
scandal.
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.
Handel had composed numerous Italian operas for the
academy, with varying degrees of success; some were
enormously popular. The star soprano Francesca Cuzzoni
had partnered with internationally renowned castrato
Senesino as the leading performers in a long series of
Italian operas by Handel and other composers for the
academy, and to increase audience interest, the
directors decided to import another celebrated singer
from Italy, soprano Faustina Bordoni, so that the
operas would have not one but two leading ladies
onstage. This was a common practice in opera houses of
the day in Italy; Cuzzoni and Faustina (as Bordoni was
called) had appeared together in various European
cities without incident.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admeto).
Although originally scored for Violini, Alto & Bassi I
created this Interpretation of the Aria "La gloria
sola, che ogn'or bramai" from "Admeto" (HWV 22 Act 1
No. 3) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC