Opera at home?
Attending the opera was a central part of social life in 18th-century London: during the season, members of London’s upper class spent several evenings a week at the theater, and the singers’ airs and graces provided ideal topics of conversation both in newspapers and in drawing rooms.
But what was a music lover to do outside of the turbulent opera season? Sound recordings of the music did not exist, but eager publishers sensed business in selling sheet music for the most popular arias and pieces from each opera shortly after they premiered, arranged for reduced instrumentation that could be easily obtained for domestic music-making. The most extensive collection of this kind is a multi-volume series by John Walsh entitled Sonatas or Chamber Aires and aptly described as “Being the most Celebrated Songs & Arias collected out of all the late Operas Compos’d by Mr. Handel.” With the help of such arrangements, opera lovers of the 18th century could enjoy their favorite melodies at home — without orchestra or vocal soloists.
The idea of this program is to revive the tradition of performing Handel’s operatic works at home — a practice that is little cultivated today. False Consonance wants to free the arrangement from the reputation of being amateurish with inferior quality and rehabilitate them as a serious music-making practice by mixing historical arrangements with their own.
In compiling the individual pieces from various operas by Handel, the ensemble is guided by a set of standard scenes of 18th-century opera seria: the lamento, the love duet or the revenge aria, and strings them together not with threads of content or a concrete idea of a plot, but rather with dramaturgical tension. The result is an instrumental opera-in-miniature, as it might have sounded in the living rooms and music salons of the 18th century.
Having removed all text from the music, the composer himself is thrown into the fore as the “hero” so to speak, and becomes the titular character of this opera: Il Sassone was the nickname he was given during his time in Italy.
The arrangements
The richest treasure trove of arrangements of Handel’s music is the publisher John Walsh, who published collections of the music of several of London’s most celebrated composers, the most extensive of which appeared from 1725 in seven volumes under the title Sonatas and Chamber Airs for a German Flute, Violin or Harpsichord Being the most Celebrated Songs & Ariets Collected out of the late Operas Compos’d by Mr. Handel. In these arrangements, the orchestral ritornelli, all of which merely reflect the part of the first violin, merge abruptly into the vocal entries, often leading to awkward situations in which musical lines have not always been elegantly resolved. The original vocal sections are accompanied only by the basso continuo; the orchestral accompaniment is not transferred. For these reasons, among others, Walsh’s arrangements have been widely regarded as inferior and are therefore rarely heard in concert to this day.
John Walsh was not the only one to arrange Handel’s operatic works during his lifetime: of particular interest is a manuscript from The Hague (NL-DHa K XIX 1) for flauto piccolo, viola da gamba, and basso continuo with seven arias by Handel from a variety of operas, which must have been written after the year 1736. The original vocal part is played by the viola da gamba, often transposed an octave down and sometimes adding double stops or other figures idiomatic to the instrument, while the part of the first violin is taken over by the flute. It is possible that the manuscript is connected with Princess Anne, who resided in The Hague after her marriage to William IV and — as contemporary witnesses report — had previously been one of Handel’s favorite pupils.
In putting this program together, the ensemble aims to engage in the spirit provided by the historical sources and find something new and original whereby the large is made small and the small is made large: through the performance of these works as chamber music, a new intimacy is explored in depth; by arranging it in the form of an opera, this intimacy of the living room is transformed into the grandeur of the operatic stage.
Il Sassone
Act 1
The sparkling opening overture from the opera Alessandro is immediately followed by one of Handel’s best-known arias from Alcina (1735): The pensive cantilena “Verdi prati”, originally a description of green meadows and pastures, is heard here in Walsh’s arrangement and in intimate scoring with only traverso and theorbo. The pastoral opening scene, however, is quickly interrupted by the stormy bass aria “Sorge infausta” (Orlando) where the cello takes over the vocal part, then suddenly takes a turn for the melancholy with the farewell duet “Io t’abbraccio” (Rodelinda). The act concludes with the two characteristic dance movements “Chaconne & Sarabande” from Handel’s first-ever opera Almira.
Act 2
This act begins with a special arrangement of an aria, which is presented here as a world premiere recording. It is a historical arrangement of the aria “Vedrò più liete e belle” (Lotario) for flute, viola da gamba and basso continuo from a manuscript from The Hague, in which the viol takes the vocal part. After a brief tender Sinfonia (Saul) for baroque guitar (originally intended by Handel for the harp), the mood is abruptly reversed with a raging fury in the aria “Vorrei vendicarmi” (Alcina). The calming of the frenzied violin back into courtly decorum is accomplished — as usual in Handel’s operas — by means of a little minuet (Giulio Cesare) arranged by John Walsh for two soprano instruments. Alone, this attempt at calm does not succeed and the rage turns into deep dejection and melancholy, expressed in the aria “Si, son quella” (Alcina).
Act 3
As an introduction to the third and last part, no opera music is heard, but rather a four-movement trio sonata in b-minor from Handel’s Opus 2 for violin, flute and basso continuo. The operatic reference is nevertheless present, for Handel used the third movement (Largo) of the sonata already in 1707 in the oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and later also as material for his aria “Vaghe fonti” (Agrippina).
The trio sonata is followed by the touching lamento “Ombre, piante, urne funeste!” (Rodelinda), in which the viola da gamba once again takes over the original vocal part, but this time in a version arranged by the ensemble. Problems that seem unsolvable are often resolved in baroque opera with a simple trick — called deus ex machina in the theatrical repertoire: completely abruptly and surprisingly, the conflict and all its relevant problems are resolved. This role is assumed by the violin in a short charming prelude that seamlessly leads into the joyful aria “Da tempeste” (Giulio Cesare), which originally is reserved for the moment where Cleopatra realizes, that even after the darkest night and the heaviest storm there is light in people’s lives. It is thus a perfect example of the obligatory lieto fine in baroque opera. The happy ending is again sustained with the final movement “Entrée & Tambourin” from the opera Alcina.