Georg Friedrich Handel: Continuo Cantatas

Contents 1. Handel: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (HWV 138) – Prelude 2. Handel: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (HWV 138) – Nice, che fa? che pensa? 3. Handel: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (HWV 138) – Se pensate chi mi moro (aria adagio) 4. Handel: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (HWV 138) – Ah! per maggior mio duolo 5. Handel: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (HWV 138) – Verrà, sì, verrà chi adoro 6. Handel: Chi Rapi la Pace al Core? (HWV 90) – Chi rapì la pace al core? 7. Handel: Chi Rapi la Pace al Core? (HWV 90) – Figlio dun fabbro 8. Handel: Chi Rapi la Pace al Core? (HWV 90) – Pupilla lucente 9. Handel: Fra pensieri Quel pensiero (HWV 115) – Sonata 10.Handel: Fra pensieri Quel pensiero (HWV 115) – Fra pensieri quel pensiero 11.Handel: Fra pensieri Quel pensiero (HWV 115) – E se fia che volando 12.Handel: Fra pensieri Quel pensiero (HWV 115) – Pronti lale dispiegate 13.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Prelude 14.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Lungi dal mio bel nume 15.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Lontano al mio tesoro 16.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Senza la vaga Clori 17.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Son come navicella 18.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Lungi da te, ben mio 19.Handel: Lungi dal mio Bel Nume (HWV 127A) – Torna, vieni non tardare 20.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Oh numi eterni! 21.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Gia superbo del mio affanno 22.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Ma voi forse nel cielo 23.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Il suol che preme 24.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Ah! che ancor nell’abisso 25.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Questi la disperata anima mia 26.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Alla salma infedel porga la pena 27.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – A voi, padre, consorte 28.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Gia nel seno 29.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Sento chil cor si scuote 30.Handel: Lucrezio (HWV 145) – Ma se qui non medato

Handel’s years in Italy (ca. 1706-1710) were extremely creative. His chamber cantatas were performed by the most eminent singers and instrumentalists in Rome. Exploring the art of continuo playing in Handel’s ‘continuo cantatas’, harpsichordist Christian Kjos, soprano Ditte Marle braein and mezzo-soprano Marlanne Beate release an album with captivating interpretations.

The chamber cantata was a popular genre in Italy. Their main subject is passionate love in all its facets between the shepherds in the romanticized region of Arcadia in Greece. Handel wrote around seventy continuo cantatas a lesser known genre among his rich output performed at weekly musical gatherings in the palaces of his Roman patrons.

Christian Kjos – “Continuo playing can be rendered in various degrees of complexity, depending on the skill of the performer. The treatise Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731) by Johann Mattheson Handel’s friend from his Hamburg years gave me the incentive to research this rarely heard approach and to try it out in Handel’s equally rarely played continuo cantatas where the continuo part is so fundamental to the result. What might be most noticeable is how frequently I abandon chordal playing to let more melodic material, imitations, parallel thirds and added dissonances into the realization, making it sound closer to an obbligato harpsichord part. Therefore, I have deliberately chosen to render these cantatas solely with harpsichord accompaniment. This chamber musical duo format like the later German Lieder seems especially suitable in terms of chamber musical flexibility, and in order to hear the independent realization even better.”