Getting at Handel's operas and oratorios

Started by Tancata, July 10, 2007, 01:25:37 PM

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Coopmv

I am now playing the last set of Handel's operas - Agrippina I bought from MDT a few weeks ago.  Next on the shopping list are Ariodante by Minkowski, Alcina, Arminio, Radamisto and Ezio by Alan Curtis.  I may also get a few sets by William Christie ...     ;D


Coopmv

It looks like the most logical approach for my acquisition of Alan Curtis' Handel operas is via this box set, where Admeto is the only duplicate set - I bought the EMI recording on LP over 20 years ago ...


Coopmv

Is anyone familiar with or like Jean-Claude Malgoire?  I was going through one of my LP shelves that hold operas and saw a few long forgotten Handel's operas by Jean-Claude Malgoire.  They are Xerxes and Rinaldo.  I also have Partenope by Sigiswald Kuijken with La Petite Bande.  BTW, this latter recording will be released on CD come 7/21.


Elgarian

Quote from: Coopmv on July 18, 2009, 07:08:58 PM
It looks like the most logical approach for my acquisition of Alan Curtis' Handel operas is via this box set, where Admeto is the only duplicate set - I bought the EMI recording on LP over 20 years ago ...



Looks like the Curtis box got us all in the end.....

DarkAngel

#564
Quote from: DarkAngel on July 03, 2009, 09:28:15 AM
Elgarian......I think I know another person who will soon be buying the Curtis/Virgin opera boxset   >:D

My prediction of 7/3/09 is about to become reality........ ::)

I have been very busy with Mozart and Vivaldi opera recently, my Curtis boxset has not been sampled yet.
I did have the Curtis/Virgin Radamisto seperately and discussed it here recently (great performance), sealed the deal to buy boxset, so much more to come for Handel opera

The "logical" thing to do BTW is stop reading these threads so you can enjoy the music you have and not be constantly
tempted to buy more (and more and more)

Coopmv

Quote from: DarkAngel on July 19, 2009, 05:26:53 AM

The "logical" thing to do BTW is stop reading these threads so you can enjoy the music you have and not be constantly
tempted to buy more (and more and more)

Come on.  You need to keep spending to give this economy a shot in the arm ...     ;D

Elgarian

Quote from: DarkAngel on July 19, 2009, 05:26:53 AM
The "logical" thing to do BTW is stop reading these threads so you can enjoy the music you have and not be constantly tempted to buy more (and more and more)

Sorry DA - no time to read your post, or reply. Too busy buying more Handel. And Vivaldi. And Elgar (new collection of songs just out); and Beethoven. And then there are these bankcruptcy documents to deal with.

Coopmv

Quote from: Elgarian on July 19, 2009, 09:05:27 AM
Sorry DA - no time to read your post, or reply. Too busy buying more Handel.

Yeah, keep on buying is the word, Elgarian.  Since I am almost done with my Handel oratorio collection, I am turning my attention to his operas ...     ;D

Elgarian

#568
I want to talk about something I mentioned in a previous post, but which is very difficult to express in words, and I'm not sure if it's just a personal thing, or if others experience it.

This phenomenon occurs only with certain kinds of Handel's music. A soprano will be singing; if it's a duet, it's even more likely to happen; it often happens in the cantatas - I'm thinking of the two Helios discs for instance, that Mike and I love so much; or the set of duets I've just bought (see above), with Gillian Fisher and James Bowman.

So what is it, and how can I describe it? The feeling is that the music is somehow energising or enchanting the air itself. Yes, I know that all sound is energy transmitted through the air, but I don't mean just that - not the mere physics of the process. It's a feeling that the voices are actually changing the nature of the air momentarily; the sound becomes almost tangible, as if sprinkled with audible stardust, that I might actually feel if I swept my hands through it; or perhaps it might be described as a feeling that the air is blessed by the music. Forgive me if this sounds gooey or corny - I'm struggling to express the inexpressible here.

I'm not suggesting anything supranormal - this is a purely perceptive experience, 'as if' - but it's a characteristic I encounter again and again in Handel. I've noticed it before in Couperin occasionally, again when two female voices are involved. Oh - and of course it doesn't work at all with headphones. It has to be out there, the music filling the air from loudspeakers.

What I want to know is - does anyone else experience this thing? Or is it just me, and am I nuts?

knight66

Alan, Not exactly similar, nor by any means confined to Handel. But yes, I can relate to this though I express it differently. I think of it in terms of a stasis, where time stands still and I become unaware of anything other than what I am listening to. There is an elevated, 'other' quality to the music.

In Handel, various passages from Theodora, Julius Caesar the duet between Cornelia and her son, a number of specific arias in Bach cantatas, Strauss Four Last songs, the closing scene from Capriccio. The duet of the Armed Men in Magic Flute, but only in the Klemperer set. Brahms Op118 piano pieces, Bach cello suites.

There is a concentration, but I don't have the powers of expression, it is not mere beauty, something more profound.

Mike




DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Coopmv

Quote from: Elgarian on July 19, 2009, 12:53:02 AM
Looks like the Curtis box got us all in the end.....

It is a no brainer since that box offers lots of value ...

DarkAngel


Quote from: Elgarian on July 19, 2009, 09:29:12 AM
I want to talk about something I mentioned in a previous post, but which is very difficult to express in words, and I'm not sure if it's just a personal thing, or if others experience it.

This phenomenon occurs only with certain kinds of Handel's music. A soprano will be singing; if it's a duet, it's even more likely to happen; it often happens in the cantatas - I'm thinking of the two Helios discs for instance, that Mike and I love so much; or the set of duets I've just bought (see above), with Gillian Fisher and James Bowman.

So what is it, and how can I describe it? The feeling is that the music is somehow energising or enchanting the air itself. Yes, I know that all sound is energy transmitted through the air, but I don't mean just that - not the mere physics of the process. It's a feeling that the voices are actually changing the nature of the air momentarily; the sound becomes almost tangible, as if sprinkled with audible stardust, that I might actually feel if I swept my hands through it; or perhaps it might be described as a feeling that the air is blessed by the music. Forgive me if this sounds gooey or corney - I'm struggling to express the inexpressible here.

I'm not suggesting anything supranormal - this is a purely perceptive experience, 'as if' - but it's a characteristic I encounter again and again in Handel. I've noticed it before in Couperin occasionally, again when two female voices are involved. Oh - and of course it doesn't work at all with headphones. It has to be out there, the music filling the air from loudspeakers.

What I want to know is - does anyone else experience this thing? Or is it just me, and am I nuts?


That is just the right side of your brain taking over..........the creative inventive side that operates on instinct/imagination and not conscious analytical thought. You are like a bird in flight that glides on the musical air currents, you see/imagine things in a different enhanced way (with no drugs)

What about the actual singers and musicians themselves?
They surrender to thier creative side and magically flow with the music, you cannot consciously think how to play each note of music (that is for practice and learning skills) it must flow naturally during performance........just a different way of thinking when dealing with music and arts in general etc

knight66

That first paragraph is a very good description I feel.

Re the second paragraph. I used to sing a great deal in choral works. I was very fortunate to participate in a lot of superb performances. There would indeed be times when it was like flying. One instance was in stretches of the Berlioz Te Deum, I felt as though I could throw away the music, I was locked into an experience that I likened to flying, nothing could go wrong. Another was in the first two long movements of the Missa Solemnis; here the machine was pounding forward in its highly complex configurations. I had prepared so thoroughly that again, I was on  a kind of high, where I knew the work so well, I was free to express it, live in it, no longer perform, but bath in it.

This did not happen often enough, but there were some pieces that would never induce it.

In contrast to the listening experience, where the contemplative takes me out of myself, in performance it was the energy of the instances that I mentioned where I had my sense of flight.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

DavidW

I've had that air is enchanted feeling with Handel, it's as if the music is magical.

Elgarian

Quote from: DarkAngel on July 19, 2009, 11:36:16 AM
That is just the right side of your brain taking over..........the creative inventive side that operates on instinct/imagination and not conscious analytical thought. You are like a bird in flight that glides on the musical air currents, you see/imagine things in a different enhanced way (with no drugs)

I think that's a partial explanation, DA, in that for sure, the right brain has to be engaged with the music for this experience to occur. But there are many other times when my right brain is actively engaged with the music, but I don't get this quasi-physical sensation. For instance, I've never had this experience listening to Elgar, yet his music stimulates my right brain, intuitive, imaginative activity perhaps like no other.

The feeling is very specific to a very particular type of Handel's music, as I said. Of course other music generates different, equally powerful, even overwhelming, imaginative effects; but this one is very specific. The air itself seems alive, as if some magic essence has been breathed into it; it seems full of something indefinable.

Elgarian

Quote from: knight on July 19, 2009, 11:45:36 AM
Re the second paragraph. I used to sing a great deal in choral works. I was very fortunate to participate in a lot of superb performances. There would indeed be times when it was like flying. One instance was in stretches of the Berlioz Te Deum, I felt as though I could throw away the music, I was locked into an experience that I likened to flying, nothing could go wrong. Another was in the first two long movements of the Missa Solemnis; here the machine was pounding forward in its highly complex configurations. I had prepared so thoroughly that again, I was on  a kind of high, where I knew the work so well, I was free to express it, live in it, no longer perform, but bath in it.

It was worth making my post just to elicit this super description of your singing experience. How fabulous, to have experienced that. Those expressions you're using there - 'live in it', 'bathe in it' - they do seem to be coming close to the thing I've been trying to describe. As if ... as if you wouldn't be surprised to find yourself floating a little above the ground, because the air had just gently lifted you without you noticing? That's the thing about this feeling in the air - it's so gentle, so  ... benevolent.

Elgarian

Quote from: DavidW on July 19, 2009, 11:50:41 AM
I've had that air is enchanted feeling with Handel, it's as if the music is magical.

Excellent. We're obviously talking about the same thing. And reassuring, in that now I know it's not just me who's nuts.

Coopmv

Quote from: Elgarian on July 19, 2009, 01:11:22 PM
Excellent. We're obviously talking about the same thing. And reassuring, in that now I know it's not just me who's nuts.

I think this feeling is not limited only to Handel's vocal works.  I actually share similar feeling when I listen to a number of Bach's oratorios or passions.  This feeling is actually quite contagious when I watch Bernada Fink or Dietrich Henschel sing in a number of the Bach DVD's I have - seeing is believing ...

Elgarian



Wow. I'm not going to attempt to say whether I prefer this or the later Acis & Galatea; they're quite different works. But I've been enchanted by this, today - and how marvellous to have both of these approaches, by Handel, to the Acis & Galatea myth. There's one thing worthy of note that strikes me as odd; Aci is sung by a soprano, and Galatea by a mezzo. This takes some getting used to, because one automatically assumes that the higher voice is Galatea, and the lower, Aci. I wonder why Handel did that?

But let's set that curiosity aside. This music is ravishing. It's full of those 'magic in the air' moments we've been talking about. When it finished I went for a walk by the river - we're just a few miles from the estuary here, and walking there on this light, sunny day, watching the water rippling its way towards the sea, it wasn't at all difficult to think of it as Acis, hurrying to embrace Galatea in the sea, despite the absence of any volcanoes in the guise of Polifemo. I was struck by the three-way symbiosis of the myth, the music, and nature; how each feeds the others to the enrichment of all. Perhaps even a four-way symbiosis, actually, because I was being affected by recent delvings into Poussin's Arcadian landscapes, too. Painting, music, myth, and the natural world: an ancient combination.

My admiration fror Handel grows and grows. Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is so good that I suspect it would have granted immortality to any composer who'd produced it; and Handel kept them coming and coming. Delight, magic, lovely singing, some tunes so lovely that they hurt - a 2 CD set for under £10. Just don't think about it. Buy one. Next month I hope to get the Haim version and see which I like best.

DarkAngel

#579
Quote from: Elgarian on July 20, 2009, 10:54:13 AM


Wow. I'm not going to attempt to say whether I prefer this or the later Acis & Galatea; they're quite different works. But I've been enchanted by this, today - and how marvellous to have both of these approaches, by Handel, to the Acis & Galatea myth. There's one thing worthy of note that strikes me as odd; Aci is sung by a soprano, and Galatea by a mezzo. This takes some getting used to, because one automatically assumes that the higher voice is Galatea, and the lower, Aci. I wonder why Handel did that?

No you can say it...........you prefer the early Italian cantata version  ;)

One would normally think that a sea nymph like Galatea would get the soprano part and the shepard Aci would get the mezzo/alto
I will check my Haim/Virgin set when I get home from work and see how the vocals are handled

It is almost impossible to find a weak work among Handel's early Italian opera/cantata output.
The English oratorios are less appealing to me in general