Georg Friedrich Händel
Musik für das Schauspiel "Comus (There in blissful shades and bow’rs)" - Musik für das Schauspiel "Alceste" - Englische Lieder
Halle Handel Edition (HHA) II/Supplement 4
NEW
Georg Friedrich Händel
Musik für das Schauspiel "Comus (There in blissful shades and bow’rs)" - Musik für das Schauspiel "Alceste" - Englische Lieder
Halle Handel Edition (HHA) II/Supplement 4
- Instrumentation Soloists and Orchestra
- Composer Georg Friedrich Händel
- Series Hallische Händel-Ausgabe
- Editor Christine Martin
- Edition Sheet Music (Urtext)
- Publisher Bärenreiter Verlag
- Order no. BA10271-01
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Description:
Music has been an important part of many theatrical performances in the British Isles since the 16th century. Many of G. F. Handel's favourites have also been performed in English dramas and ballad operas, often adapted and parodied. Handel himself, however, composed only occasionally for the theatre stage.
The present volume contains Handel's secular vocal works in English, which can be described in the broadest sense as 'theatre music?' or incidental music: four numbers ("There in blissful shades and bow'rs", HWV 44) for John Milton's "Mask", later called "Comus", the incidental music for Tobias Smollett's drama "Alceste", HWV 45, which was to be performed at the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1750, and fifteen English songs, which were often first performed on the stages of London's theatres and pleasure gardens before spreading through printed song sheets.
The music for "Alceste", which has survived without the accompanying drama, is supplemented by research into possible models for Smollett's tragedy. In the case of the English songs, it was particularly important to distinguish the authentic compositions from numerous arrangements and counterfactual of popular arias and dances from Handel's works. For the first time, criteria for the authenticity of Handel's English songs were defined here, as part of the Halle Handel Edition. These include the autograph tradition, the verifiable contact with lyricists and interpreters of the songs, the attribution of a song during the composer's lifetime, and the borrowings of musical material from or in other works by Handel. The volume thus provides insights into a hitherto little-known but charming genre of Handel's oeuvre that reflects the specific aesthetics of English theatre of his time.
The present volume contains Handel's secular vocal works in English, which can be described in the broadest sense as 'theatre music?' or incidental music: four numbers ("There in blissful shades and bow'rs", HWV 44) for John Milton's "Mask", later called "Comus", the incidental music for Tobias Smollett's drama "Alceste", HWV 45, which was to be performed at the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1750, and fifteen English songs, which were often first performed on the stages of London's theatres and pleasure gardens before spreading through printed song sheets.
The music for "Alceste", which has survived without the accompanying drama, is supplemented by research into possible models for Smollett's tragedy. In the case of the English songs, it was particularly important to distinguish the authentic compositions from numerous arrangements and counterfactual of popular arias and dances from Handel's works. For the first time, criteria for the authenticity of Handel's English songs were defined here, as part of the Halle Handel Edition. These include the autograph tradition, the verifiable contact with lyricists and interpreters of the songs, the attribution of a song during the composer's lifetime, and the borrowings of musical material from or in other works by Handel. The volume thus provides insights into a hitherto little-known but charming genre of Handel's oeuvre that reflects the specific aesthetics of English theatre of his time.