On Mon, 21 May 2001, Craig Tompkins wrote:
> Dear listers:
>
> I was given these lyrics by a colleague who wants to know the composer
> and the name of the piece they are from. The only bits of information
> he had was that it was recorded in 1937, and was possibly written by
> Handel!
>
> Let me wander not unseen...
It's an aria towards the end of Part 1 of Handel's Ode "L'Allegro, il
Penseroso ed il Moderato" which, despite the title, is in English, being
settings of the poems by the same name by John Milton - L'Allegro and Il
Penseroso, which describe two very different human personalities - a
hedonist and a contemplative). The "Il Moderato" section actually
originated not with Milton but with Handel's initial librettist, James
Hains (refined by the ultimate librettist, Charles Jennens), as a
"harmonization" of the opposing Miltonian personalities by "Sweet
Temp'rance". The music is delightful throughout. Unfortunately, neither
Hains nor Jennens was even remotely up to the task of "competing" with
Milton (or "completing" his ideas), and the libretto of the "Il
Moderato" section is pretty bad, which may explain why this section is
recorded and performed much less often than the other two sections. The
whole work itself, like many Handel works, does not exist in a single
definitive version; and, like many Handel works, it was written rather
quickly, in just over a month in 1740, the year it was also first
performed.
The best recordings available are on Hyperion (cond. by Robert King) and
on Erato (cond. by John Eliot Gardiner). Less well-favoured (I've heard
but don't own it) is the Virgin Classics recording conducted by John
Nelson - but this could just be a reflection of the fact that I just don't
"get" Ian Bostridge (a more technically proficient but dramatically
uninteresting tenor I cannot think of) and I absolutely dislike Lynne
Dawson, who seems at the same time shrill and just about out of control
vocally. David Daniels is also on this recording, but gives a merely
workmanlike performance, IMO.
KM
............................
NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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+ I sing hymns with my spirit, +
+ but I also sing hymns with my mind. +
+ - 1 Corinthians 14:15 +
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