I think my love for both Handel and Ian Bostridge are pretty well established now, and if you spend much time on this blog, you will probably find yourself getting to know them rather well.\u00a0 Part of me feels that I should be looking for more variety, but honestly, this blog is about the music I love, and, well, this is it.\u00a0 And this particular aria contains, I think, some truly perfect singing, especially in the repeat at the end.<\/p>\n
[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cVx9sGQIKng&version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0]<\/p>\n
Actually, I have a confession to make: for all my singing studies and choirs and such, I actually don’t listen to music all that much.\u00a0 It’s something I feel a bit guilty about, but there you have it – it either doesn’t engage my attention, or I want to sing it.\u00a0 Apparently, I like to participate in my art.\u00a0 But this piece – and the CD it comes from (Great Handel) – is the exception.\u00a0 Suddenly, I listen, and I want to listen, and don’t feel the need to add anything or to try it myself.\u00a0 And it’s actually relaxing, which is rather fascinating, as I was *frequently* exhorted to listen to music as a form of relaxation as I was growing up, and I didn’t get relaxed, I got bored and irritable…<\/p>\n
This music, sung in Bostridge’s voice, is just magical.<\/p>\n
(Which is not to say I don’t then end up singing the arias under my breath at the tram-stop, but that’s not something that will ever change.)<\/p>\n
Actually, this aria was never intended for a tenor singer, being originally written for a castrato.\u00a0 This does present certain difficulties for modern productions, and the role is generally sung by a mezzo soprano.\u00a0 The difficulty with this (and I say this as the girl who invariably ends up with the male alto solos in her early music choir) is that the notes sit very differently in a female voice – it’s difficult to get a good volume and intensity into the lower notes (which would sit in the middle of the castrato range, but are at the very bottom of the female range), though the upper notes float beautifully. Here’s Magdalena Kozena<\/a> doing a lovely, dramatic job of the aria, complete with some pretty impressive low notes in the final section.\u00a0 Don’t piss off the mezzo, that’s what I say..<\/p>\n The other alternative, of course, is to give the role to a counter-tenor.\u00a0 This is probably more authentic, but risks shrillness in the upper register (I’ve just sat through 6 different recordings of this piece by counter tenors, and most of them made me wince for that very reason).\u00a0\u00a0 Here, for your interest and delectation, is a counter-tenor version of this aria<\/a>, sung by David Daniels, which is not remotely shrill and is in fact absolutely fabulous.\u00a0 His ornamentation in the repeat is positively swoon-worthy, and makes me feel that those five painful recordings were worth it to find this one…<\/p>\n … Oh, you want lyrics?\u00a0 Very well then…<\/p>\n
| E vivo ancora? e senza il ferro, oh Dei! \nChe far\u00f2? che mi dite, o affanni miei?Scherza infida in grembo al drudo.<\/p>\n Io tradito a morte in braccio, | Am I still living? and thus unarmed, alas! \nWhat shall I do? What do you say, my sorrows? \nLaugh, faithless woman, in your lover\u2019s arms. \nBy your fault I find myself \nbetrayed, approaching death. \nBut I shall return, a sad shade \nand naked spirit to torment you \nand to break this base liaison.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think my love for both Handel and Ian Bostridge are pretty well established now, and if you spend much time on this blog, you will probably find yourself getting to know them rather well.\u00a0 Part of me feels that I should be looking for more variety, but honestly, this blog is about the music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,66,174,263,326,460,549,636],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ariodante","tag-baroque","tag-david-daniels","tag-g-f-handel","tag-ian-bostridge","tag-magdalena-kozena","tag-opera","tag-scherza-infida"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |