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Handel’s cantatas represent an important musical repertoire that until recently has been little known.  Consisting of about 100 separate works, most were written over a period of a few years for private performance in Italy.

They range from musical miniatures containing only two arias connected by recitative and accompanied by continuo (a bass line typically realized by cello and harpsichord) to larger works with named characters, a dramatic story, and rich instrumental forces.  Telling more often than not about the pangs of love, these are intimate works, with texts frequently written by (and sometimes about) members of the privileged audience for which they were composed.  A number of Handel’s cantatas have texts by one of his important Italian patrons, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj.

The project of Marco Vitale to record all of Handel’s cantatas is thrilling. The continuo cantatas have never been recorded in full and many have never been recorded at all.  Thus, this project will bring to life largely unknown music by one of the world’s greatest composers.  Further, performance all the cantatas will place the larger, instrumental works in the musical context of their creation.

This project is the continuation of the ‘Handel Complete Cantatas’ series appeared recently on the market with four volumes issued. This is the first volume presented by the ayros recording label, as continuation of the series . This CD features the great soprano Roberta Mameli, an acclaimed specialist of the Handel repertoire and it includes the wonderful cantatas “Notte placida e cheta” and “Armida abbandonata”.

Recorded in Poland, April 2012.

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[p]The 4th volume of Brilliant Classics’ recordings of Handel’s complete cantatas, performed by Contrasto Armonico and directed by Marco Vitale, gathers together five works that vividly illustrate the composer’s skill at setting the words of his texts, creating hitherto unknown emotional depth and nuance from modest orchestral forces.[/p]

[p]The musical setting of Clori, mia bella Clori amply displays the genius that would establish Handel as the leading operatic composer of his day, using a range of different combinations of instruments to respond to the subject of each section of the text, from grief and weeping to passionate jealousy. Similarly, in both Pensieri notturni di Filli (Nel dolce dell’oblio) and Lungi n’andò Fileno Handel employs striking dissonance to create a musical counterpart to the despair and suffering of the texts. By contrast, Sans y penser, Handel’s only French cantata, is a comic work, closing with a humorous musical illustration of the singer’s tribute to drinking.[/p]

[p]Handel composed over 100 secular cantatas during his stay in Italy in the early 1700s. He had several patrons; among the most generous and supportive was the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and most of the information on the works included on this disc comes from his records.[/p]

[p]These cantatas reveal the richness of the young composer’s compositional palette, and his ability to depict the content of his texts in such a way that the listener both hears and experiences the emotions of each work. As such, they are an important foreshadowing of his later career as a celebrated operatic composer.[/p]

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[p]This dra­matic can­tata is one of the ear­li­est works com­posed for Handel’s Ital­ian patron Mar­quis Francesco Maria Rus­poli. It is thought that the first per­for­mance took place in 1707, around the same time as his La Res­ur­rezione. Han­del met Corelli, and had heard the music of Alessan­dro Scar­latti, and his com­po­si­tional skills had broad­ened con­sid­er­ably as a result.[/p]

[p]In addi­tion, his abil­ity at real­is­ing in his music the emo­tion behind the words, and of cre­at­ing fully rounded char­ac­ters (that would later dis­tin­guish him as one of the great­est opera com­posers) blos­somed. Although Han­del had huge orches­tral forces at his dis­posal in Italy, the scor­ing for this ten­der tale of a shep­herd who even­tu­ally wins the love of a nymph play­ing hard to get, is small and ideal for the drama that unfolds. This record­ing uses Handel’s orig­i­nal ver­sion of the score, con­sid­ered by Marco Vitale to be stronger than his revision.[/p]

[p]A unique and pres­ti­gious project: the com­plete can­tatas by Han­del. Vol­ume 3 offers the great, large-scale Ital­ian Can­tata Aminta & Fil­lide, writ­ten by the young Han­del in Rome, and telling the story of a shep­herd win­ning the love of a reluc­tant nymph. The per­for­mances of Con­trasto Armon­ico and Marco Vitale, bases on thor­ough sci­en­tific research and played on period instru­ments, are full of “Han­delian” drama and vir­tu­os­ity. The singers are absolutely won­der­ful, Stephanie True is one of the finest Baroque sopra­nos at present. Com­plete texts included, as well as liner notes writ­ten by Marco Vitale, explain­ing the back­ground, his­tory and sources of this won­der­ful music.[/p]

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[p]Handel’s can­tatas rep­re­sent an impor­tant but until recently little-known area of his work. Even now newly dis­cov­ered works are found and per­formed to much excite­ment in the media and among lovers of Handel’s music. They were writ­ten dur­ing his time in Rome from 1707/8, and were intended for pri­vate use. They range from minia­tures con­sist­ing of two arias, recita­tive and a basso con­tinuo, to large scale works with all the drama of his operas, com­plete with named char­ac­ters, a plot, and large orches­tral forces.[/p]

[p]This CD con­tains the remark­able ‘Tra le fiamme’, writ­ten for Car­di­nal Pam­philj, who pro­vided the text. The story con­cerns a young man who’s heart is play­ing for amuse­ment and affec­tion ‘in the flames’, but is being deceived by ‘charm and beauty’. He con­sid­ers the fact that very few peo­ple escape the flames of love safely, and with­out being hurt. The story then turns to the exam­ple of Daedalus and his son Icarus, and how man sel­dom learns from history.[/p]