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Looking ahead to Handel year 2009 this CD offers a rare opportunity to listen to Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo .This seldomly heard ‘serenata’ (musical entertainment) was written by the famous composer when still very young - he was 23 - in Italy. True to the original setting of such a piece – often outdoors and without acting – the cast consists of just three characters. They are all mentioned in the title. In this serenata Handel occasionally has been very specific about instruments to be used in performances. Thus a ‘violone grosso’ shows up in the opening aria.

Apollo e Dafne is an early work of Handel’s, completed at the latest by 1710 when he was 25 years old in Hanover, whence Handel departed in 1710 after Agrippina had made such an impact in Venice. He thence decamped to London in the autumn of 1710, perhaps as a propagandist for the Hannoverian succession, and may even have had political duties to attend to in secret, while carrying on a spectacularly successful musical charm‐offensive in favour of George and Germany. If this is the case, then we could see the dance suite of music from The Alchymist (HWV43) as advanced publicity, carefully planned to prepare Handel’s arrival.

Whatever: both works here are the works of a youthful and exuberant outpouring of genius. They both were conceived in theatrical Catholic Italy, only to achieve their final form in the Protestant North. In this transformation process they seem to have lost none of their vigour and warmth; and today they charm us still as they must have charmed when new, like a whiff from distant lemon groves through the London fog and the rain. Jed Wentz and his consort Musica ad Rhenum are stalwarts of the extensive catalogue of historically informed recordings on Brilliant Classics. They draw on the rich performance and scholarly tradition of early music in The Netherlands, and their recordings of Bach, Handel, Couperin, Rameau and more have, since the group's foundation in 1992, won critical praise.

Recorded 2006.

Contains notes on the music as well as artist biographies.

Contains a libretto for Apollo e Dafne.

New recordings made in 2009.

Extensive booklet notes and sung texts.

Already available on Brilliant: La Resurrezione (93805), and Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (93665).

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. Marco Vitale will record the first ever complete cycle of these cantatas. He has returned both to Handel’s manuscripts, where they are extant, and to many of the intervening manuscripts. He has also taken decisions on the pitch of these recordings as a result of his research into the different tunings that were standard in Rome and Venice at the time of the works’ composition. This was showcased in his successful recording of Handel’s early Roman oratorio, La Resurrezione, which received a glowing review in Gramophone and many other specialist musical publications. Many of the cantatas have never been recorded before and this release is sure to generate considerable interest both in itself and as the first volume of a groundbreaking project.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

Handel’s harpsichord music may have languished in the shadow of Bach’s more famed mastery of the instrument, but as these new recordings and scholarly notes by Michael Borgstede show, such comparisons are invidious. Handel was known as a superb keyboard player, and these dance suites exploit the expressive and technical resources of his instrument with no less mastery than that of his Leipzig counterpart, and with a joie de vivre that makes listening a constant diversion and delight. There are very few rival sets of this music on record, and Borgstede has made an important contribution to what will be the worldwide celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death in 2009.

Recorded in 2008.

Extensive booklet notes by the performer.

The World Premiere of Handel’s Cantata “Mira Lilla gentile”.

This new recording offers two grand scale Cantatas, each in two different versions. The first version presents the solo voice in dialogue with violin, whereas the second version replaces the violin with the more sonorous and melancholy sounds of the cello.

Soprano Valentina Varriale is an upcoming star in the Early Music scene, she sings in opera productions of Jordi Savall and Ottavio Dantone, and has recently performed in the Festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh and Dresden.

The instrumentalists play original instruments.

New recording, including liner notes on each work.

One of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, George Frideric Handel was born in Germany but spent most of his career living in London. He was something of a celebrity in his day - a status he enjoyed thanks to his prolific cultivation of opera.

Also ranking among Handel’s large vocal output are his cantatas, works that form the focus of this release. The disc brings together two different versions of Handel’s two lesser known cantatas, and includes the first ever recording of the two versions of Mira Lilla gentile. Largely neglected until now, these latter works tell the story of a young man’s unrequited love for Lilla, and while the earlier version contains a soprano solo alternating with a violin, the later version sees this instrument replaced by a cello.

The second pair of cantatas comprises the anonymous La caduta di Icaro and Handel’s Tra le fiamme HWV170, both of which use the same libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. Here the CD switches from heartbreak to counsel against pride; with the text declaiming the legend of Icarus and Daedalus, Tra le fiamme is particularly striking for its rich assortment of instruments.

Soprano Valentina Varriale has been praised for her ‘highly focused tone’ (International Record Review, April 2011). Having studied at the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples, she has since performed a variety of roles with numerous opera companies and has appeared as Zeza in a filmed version of Leonardo Leo’s L’Alidoro. In her first recording for Brilliant classics, she is joined by members of Musica Perduta.