Composer: Georg Friedrich Handel
Performer: Christian Kjos, Ditte Marie Bræin, Marianne Beate Kielland
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Simax
Catalogue: PSC1365
Release: 2020
Size: 1.15 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138
01. Prelude HWV 434
02. Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (recitativo)
03. Se pensate chi mi moro (aria – adagio)
04. Ah! Per maggior mio duolo (recitativo)
05. Verrà, sì, verrà chi adoro (aria – allegro, ma non presto)
Chi rapì la pace al core? HWV 90
06. Chi rapì la pace al core? (aria – adagio)
07. Figlio d’un fabbro (recitativo)
08. Pupilla lucente (aria – andante)
Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115
09. Sonata HWV 580
10. Fra pensieri quel pensiero (aria – […])
11. E se fia che volando (recitativo)
12. Pronti l’ale dispiegate (aria – allegro)
Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a
13. Prelude HWV 576
14. Lungi dal mio bel nume (recitativo)
15. Lontano al mio tesoro (aria – andante)
16. Senza la vaga Clori (recitativo)
17. Son come navicella (aria – allegro)
18. Lungi da te, ben mio (recitativo)
19. Torna, vieni non tardare (aria – […])
Lucrezia HWV 145
20. Oh numi eterni! (recitativo)
21. Già superbo del mio affanno (aria – adagio)
22. Ma voi forse nel cielo (recitativo)
23. Il suol che preme (aria – allegro)
24. Ah! che ancor nell’abisso (recitativo)
25. Questi la disperata anima mia (furioso)
26. Alla salma infedel porga la pena (larghetto)
27. A voi, padre, consorte (recitativo) (NOFZS1965270)
28. Già nel seno (arioso)
29. Sento ch’il cor si scuote (recitativo)
30. Ma se qui non m’edato (furioso)
Handel’s years in Italy (ca. 1706-1710) were extremely creative. His chamber cantatas were performed by the most eminent singers and instrumentalists in Rome. Exploring the art of continuo playing in Handel’s ‘continuo cantatas’, harpsichordist Christian Kjos, soprano Ditte Marle braein and mezzo-soprano Marlanne Beate release an album with captivating interpretations.
The chamber cantata was a popular genre in Italy. Their main subject is passionate love in all its facets between the shepherds in the romanticized region of Arcadia in Greece. Handel wrote around seventy continuo cantatas a lesser known genre among his rich output performed at weekly musical gatherings in the palaces of his Roman patrons.
Christian Kjos – “Continuo playing can be rendered in various degrees of complexity, depending on the skill of the performer. The treatise Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731) by Johann Mattheson Handel’s friend from his Hamburg years gave me the incentive to research this rarely heard approach and to try it out in Handel’s equally rarely played continuo cantatas where the continuo part is so fundamental to the result. What might be most noticeable is how frequently I abandon chordal playing to let more melodic material, imitations, parallel thirds and added dissonances into the realization, making it sound closer to an obbligato harpsichord part. Therefore, I have deliberately chosen to render these cantatas solely with harpsichord accompaniment. This chamber musical duo format like the later German Lieder seems especially suitable in terms of chamber musical flexibility, and in order to hear the independent realization even better.”