Program Notes:
With a Song in My Heart

Featuring guest artists: Megan Tillmann, soprano; Majie Zeller, mezzo-soprano; Matthew DiBattista, tenor; and David Kravitz, baritone

February 10, 2006

• Handel: Duets and Quartets from:
       Acis & Galatea
       Susanna
       Ariodante
       The Amorous Duel
       Apollo & Dafne
  
• Sondheim: "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow/Love Will See Us Through" from "Follies"
• Bernstein: "Somewhere" from "West Side Story"

Handel: Duets and Quartets

Born in Halle, Germany in 1685, Georg Friedrich Händel (later to become George Frideric Handel) gave up other studies to take his first job as church organist in his hometown in 1702. His ambition to write opera led him, the very next year, to the Hamburg Opera House, where he earned his living as a violinist and harpsichordist and, eventually, as a composer.

In 1706 he left his native Germany for the first time, traveling to Italy for the express purpose of perfecting his skill in writing for the voice. He spent a very fruitful four years there, learning the language, working with the finest Italian singers and players, and in general absorbing the latest styles of vocal and instrumental composition. Interestingly, he found that his goals were best achieved not in the chaotic and intrigue-filled opera houses, but in the more genteel atmosphere of the palazzos of aristocratic patrons. During his time in Italy, Handel wrote at least a hundred cantatas for solo voices and instruments, for performance on special occasions in the homes of music-loving noblemen, as well as dozens of works in other genres.

After Italy, he returned very briefly to Germany to serve as kapellmeister at the court of Hanover, but by the fall of 1710 he was in London, where he would spend the rest of his career. He wrote about 40 operas in 30 years, and then focused more on the newer form of the English oratorio. The success of his most popular work in this form, "Messiah," would assure Handel's musical immortality. Seventeen years after Handel's death, British musicologist John Hawkins wrote:

"Till they were taught [it] by Handel, none was aware of that dignity and grandeur of sentiment which music is capable of conveying, or that there is a sublime in music as there is in poetry. This is a discovery which we owe to the genius and inventive faculty of this great man; and there is little reason to doubt that the many examples of this kind with which his works abound, will continue to engage the admiration of judicious hearers as long as the love of harmony shall exist."

Acis & Galatea (1708)
The Sicilian shepherd Acis (son of a faun and a river-nymph) loves Galatea (in the original story a sea-nymph, but here a shepherdess). Acis is eventually crushed under a boulder and turned into a running stream by his rival, the monster Polyphemus. (This leaves his love unfulfilled, but guarantees his immortality.)

Susanna (1748)
The libretto by an unknown poet is taken from the book of the same name in the Apocrypha. Young Daniel demonstrates that two witnesses in Susanna's trial (which could result in the death penalty) are lying; her husband Joacim's faith in her honesty and strength of spirit is vindicated. In 1949 British musicologist Percy Young called Susanna "a homily in honor of virtue and against corruption in high places." In 1959 his colleague Winston Dean called it "an opera of English village life, and a comic opera at that." In 1990 their colleague Andrew Porter preferred to call it "a musical drama in which music of many kinds is happily comprehended and balanced, while the whole is unified as a developing portrait of its heroine." What a rich, mature work that can inspire such diverse characterizations!

Ariodante (1734)
Young Prince Ariodante loves Ginevra, Princess of Scotland. Her father blesses the match, but Ariodante's rival, Polinesso, plots against the lovers, ensnaring Ariodante's brother Lurcanio and Ginevra's lady-in-waiting Dalinda in his deceptions. All works out in the end.

Il Duello Amoroso [The Amorous Duel] (1708)
The shepherd Daliso confronts the shepherdess Amaryllis, who once pledged her love to him but has changed her mind. He threatens to force himself on her, she warns him that no permanent love can result from such violence, and he begs forgiveness.

Apollo e Dafne (1710)
The god Apollo boasts that his weaponry overmatches Cupid's arrows. In retaliation Cupid causes him to fall in love with the chaste mountain nymph Dafne, who forswears all lovers in preference to the pastoral life. Apollo tries to force himself on her, but as she cries out, Mother Earth turns her into a laurel tree. A grieving (and repentant?) Apollo consoles himself with a laurel wreath.

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