Descripción de Georg Frideric Handel - L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato - "Sweet bird" (Emma Kirkby):

The start of the year 1740 was a bad time for Handel. The Italian opera was in crisis, a situation exacerbated by the closure of London's theaters due to the most severe winter in the capital's recorded history. To make matters worse he had recently suffered the first of a series of strokes. It is remarkable that it was during this time that Handel produced one of his freshest, most appealing scores, one of the few of his works to retain undiminished popularity for the remainder of the century, "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato". Described as a "pastoral ode", the text is based on John Milton's pair of allegorical poems, "L'Allegro" and "Il Pensoroso" (ca. 1632), the titles of which refer to the humors of cheerfulness and thoughtfulness, the extrovert and introvert sides of man's character respectively, juxtaposed by a third section, the librettist's own creation, extolling the merits of moderation over extremes of temperament. One of the arias belonging to the character of "Il Penseroso", the prototypical dialogue of soprano with the birds themselves, is presented in this upload. Lasting a full fifteen minutes, the aria is truly a prolonged reflexion of Penseroso on the splendor of nature and its' creatures in the company of which Handel puts the character. Stunningly, Handel only adopts a musically whole B section where Pensoroso admires, in a slightly sombre and even chilling rising arioso the moon's beauty, while the A section is a combination of different ideas, possibly symbolizing the wandering mind of the overly-philosophical Penseroso: thus, the A section, connected into a whole by an allegro motive that is used both as an introduction to the piece (cut here) and as a constant musical bridge, amounts to several prolonged cadenzas (of no small demands on the singer) for the voice and the flute and several more traditional ariosos of melting roundness. Here, the lovely Emma Kirkby takes up the challenge and, in my opinion, triumphs. Hope you'll enjoy :)!