Giù nei Tartarei Regni, from

Händel, too, derived his command of vocal writing from time spent in Italy. Earlier in the Festival we heard a chamber cantata which he wrote around 1710 just after his departure from Italy for London. Rather than operas or cantatas, tonight we hear two independent airs: a duet for soprano and baritone on the tortures of love and love unrequited, the other a soprano solo on a similar theme.
“Giù nei Tartarei Regni” features three contrasting sections, and Händel rises to the occasion by matching very different perspectives in the text with a variety of musical tactics. The opening stanza describes how the beloved will dwell in hell’s fiery core for not feeling love in return; the music in C minor unfolds as a close canon at the interval of a second—a sure-fire way to generate harsh and unremitting dissonances. The second stanza is fugal and far more rhythmically active at the mention of the lover’s fervent ardor, whose hell it will be to gradually cool. The final stanza, comparing the opposing states of icy beloved and passionate lover, is more through composed and homophonic.
By contrast, “Lusinghe più care” has the conventional da capo structure that most listeners will be familiar with. A brief introduction sets out the principal key, G major, and the principal melodic material which will subsequently be presented in the voice. Extensive melismas show Händel’s fondness for the recently-absorbed Italian idioms; strings and voice also work in rhythmic complement to one another. The middle section, in E minor, projects a darker hue through both tonality and texture. The reduction to just voice and continuo draws greater attention to the text and strengthens the musical articulation of the aria’s overall ABA design.

(c) Jason Stell