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Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno, Cantata a tre (HWV 96), subtitled Cor fedele in vano speri ("A faithful heart hopes in vain"), is a 1707 comic cantata by George Frideric Handel. The subject is a pretty shepherdess who loves two young men, but loses both when they discover her fickleness. Believed lost for many years, the score is the source of arias in some of Handel's later, more celebrated operas.
In 1706 Handel left Hamburg for Italy, and in May 1707 began living as composer-in-residence with the Marchese Francesco Maria Ruspoli, traveling between the Bonelli Palace in Rome and the Ruspoli estate. Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno was written sometime before October of that year – a copyist's bill for the work is dated October 14, 1707. There is no certain record of any performance, but it may have been given privately before Handel left for Florence later that year to conduct the premiere of Rodrigo , his first Italian opera, which shares an aria with the cantata.
The cantata was never revived, and for centuries was known only from a fragmentary manuscript score kept in the British Library. A version of this fragment was published by Chrysander in 1889. However, in 1960 musicologist Rudolf Ewerhart announced the discovery of a complete score in the Santini Collection at Münster, the only one in existence.
Comparison of the complete score with the earlier fragment in the British Library reveals revisions made late in composition: Handel had originally closed the cantata with a cynical duet for the two deceived lovers, "Senza occhi" ("Without eyes") in which they heap scorn on womankind and renounce love forever. He replaced this with a more light-hearted trio in which the young woman and her disappointed lovers all join, "Vivere e non amar" ("To live and not to love").
Handel reused the aria "Un sospiretto" twice, that same year in Rodrigo , and in 1732 in the expanded Italian-English version of Acis and Galatea . "Come la rondinella" was also included in the Acis and Galatea revision.
The music for "Amo Tirsi" was used twice more, although with different texts. It was adapted first as "Se vuoi pace" in Agrippina (1709), and again as "As when the dove" in the original, all-English version of Acis and Galatea (1718).
Two of the duets were reused in Rinaldo (1711).[ citation needed ]
The overture, in a keyboard reduction, became the opening movement of the G-minor suite in Handel's 1st volume of harpsichord suites, published in 1720. And in 1734 it was again heard with full orchestra, appended to the pastiche opera Oreste .
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel, composed in 1711, and was the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill, and the work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket on 24 February 1711. The story of love, war and redemption, set at the time of the First Crusade, is loosely based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, and its staging involved many original and vivid effects. It was a great success with the public, despite negative reactions from literary critics hostile to the contemporary trend towards Italian entertainment in English theatres.
Agrippina is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the 1709–10 Venice Carnevale season, the opera tells the story of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an "anti-heroic satirical comedy", full of topical political allusions. Some analysts believe that it reflects Grimani's political and diplomatic rivalry with Pope Clement XI.
The year 1707 in music involved some significant events.
Orlando is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel written for the King's Theatre in London in 1733. The Italian libretto was adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's L'Orlando after Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was also the source of Handel's operas Alcina and Ariodante. More an artistic than a popular success at its first performances, Orlando is today recognised as a masterpiece.
Acis and Galatea is a musical work by George Frideric Handel with an English text by John Gay. The work has been variously described as a serenata, a masque, a pastoral or pastoral opera, a "little opera", an entertainment and by the New Grove Dictionary of Music as an oratorio. The work was originally devised as a one-act masque which premiered in 1718.
Esther is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. It is generally acknowledged to be the first English oratorio. Handel set a libretto after the Old Testament drama by Jean Racine. The work was originally composed in 1718, but was heavily revised into a full oratorio in 1732.
Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is a serenata for three voices by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed at Naples on 19 July 1708; the completed score is dated to 16 June 1708. A sort of dramatic cantata, the work was commissioned by Duchess Donna Aurora Sanseverino for the wedding of Tolomeo Saverio Gallo, Duke of Alvito, and Beatrice Tocco di Montemiletto, Princess of Acaja and the duchess's niece. Its Italian libretto was by Nicola Giuvo, secretary and adviser to the duchess, and it prefigures that of Handel's 1718 English-language masque Acis and Galatea, although Handel drew little on the music of the serenata when he prepared the masque. In the serenata the cyclops' role entails actions with lethal consequences for Aci and is notable for its range and the vocal agility it requires; it rises from the D below the bass staff to the A above it — and that in its satirical, ponderous buffa aria, "Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori"; it may have been taken at the premiere by the bass Antonio Manna, who sang at the court chapel in Vienna.
Suzie LeBlanc is a Canadian soprano and early music specialist. She taught at McGill University from 2016 to 2020 and became the Artistic and Executive Director of Early Music Vancouver in 2021. She was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2014 for her contributions to music and Acadian culture.
Ero e Leandro, also known after its first line as Qual ti reveggio, oh Dio, is a 1707 Italian-language cantata by George Frideric Handel, composed during his stay in Rome to a libretto believed to be written by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. It is a reworking of the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, with the soprano soloist taking the role of Hero. In it, Hero finds her love, Leander, drowned, tears out her hair, thus symbolically rejecting the beauty which had led to Leander's fascination with her, then drowns herself. It is composed for a soprano solo, and a small orchestra consisting of two oboes, and two string sections: a concertino of solo violin and violoncello, and a concerto grosso made up of two violins, a viola, and continuo. In Ero e Leandro, Recitatives alternate with arias, as was normal at the period for not only cantatas, but oratorios and operas as well; however, unusually, Ero e Leandro ends with a recitative, instead of an aria.
The Twelve Grand Concertos, Op. 6, HWV 319–330, by George Frideric Handel are concerti grossi for a concertino trio of two violins and cello and a ripieno four-part string orchestra with harpsichord continuo. First published by subscription in London by John Walsh in 1739, they became in a second edition two years later Handel's Opus 6. Taking the older concerto da chiesa and concerto da camera of Arcangelo Corelli as models, rather than the later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio Vivaldi favoured by Johann Sebastian Bach, they were written to be played during performances of Handel's oratorios and odes. Despite the conventional model, Handel incorporated in the movements the full range of his compositional styles, including trio sonatas, operatic arias, French overtures, Italian sinfonias, airs, fugues, themes and variations and a variety of dances. The concertos were largely composed of new material: they are amongst the finest examples in the genre of baroque concerto grosso.
The Musette, or rather chaconne, in this Concerto, was always in favour with the composer himself, as well as the public; for I well remember that HANDEL frequently introduced it between the parts of his Oratorios, both before and after publication. Indeed no instrumental composition that I have ever heard during the long favour of this, seemed to me more grateful and pleasing, particularly, in subject.
Un'alma innamorata is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano and instruments written by George Frideric Handel in 1707. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG liiB,92; and HHA v/5,97. The title of the cantata translates as "A soul in love".
O lucenti, o sereni occhi is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano written by Georg Frideric Handel in 1707. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG li, 28;. The title of the cantata translates as "O shining, o serene eyes".
Del bell'idolo mio is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano written by Georg Frideric Handel in 1707–09. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG l,48. The title of the cantata translates as "Of my beautiful idol".
Aure soavi e liete is a Baroque dramatic secular cantata in the key of E-flat major composed by George Frideric Handel in 1707 while he was serving as Kapellmeister to the Ruspoli family in Rome. The author of the text is unknown. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG l,12. The cantata is scored for solo soprano voice and basso continuo. It is divided into four separate movements with a typical performance lasting approximately seven and a half minutes.
Allor ch'io dissi addio is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano written by Georg Frideric Handel in 1707–08. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG l,8. The title of the cantata translates as "Then I said goodbye".
Thyrsis or Tirsi may refer to:
In 1703, the 18-year-old composer George Frideric Handel took up residence in Hamburg, Germany, where he remained until 1706. During this period he composed four operas, only the first of which, Almira, has survived more or less intact. Of the other three, the music for Nero is lost, while only short orchestral excerpts from Florindo and Daphne survive.
"Va tacito e nascosto" is an aria written for alto castrato voice in act 1 of George Frideric Handel's opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto, composed in 1724 to a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym. Sung by the character Julius Caesar, it features extensive solos for natural horn.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made several orchestral suites from neglected music by George Frideric Handel, mostly from the composer's 42 surviving operas. The best known of the suites are The Gods Go a'Begging (1928), The Origin of Design (1932), The Faithful Shepherd (1940), Amaryllis (1944) and The Great Elopement.
Polifemo is an opera in three acts by Nicola Porpora with a libretto by Paolo Rolli. The opera is based on a combination of two mythological stories involving the cyclops Polyphemus: His killing of Acis and his blinding by Ulysses.
