Sinfonia and Chorus, from Acis and Galatea

For the last thousand years, England has had an extremely rich musical culture, and among composers it has boasted many exceptional ones that were native born, as well as imports from abroad. Tonight’s program, set in the glorious atmosphere of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse, extends from the Middle Ages to the modern industrial world. We will land briefly in the Elizabethan Era but spend far more time under the House of Windsor.
Perhaps the most famous composer to call England home was not English by birth. I refer, of course, to George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), born Georg Friedrich Händel in the same year as J. S. Bach. After periods of study and work in his native Germany and in Italy, Handel settled permanently in London in 1712 and enjoyed a long and generally fruitful career writing for the English operatic stages. An early success was scored with Acis and Galatea. Handel had already worked with the Acis legend in Italy in 1708, when he wrote a more intimate chamber opera. That work provided both structural guidance as well as thematic material to Handel’s longer, English version. But the real motivating force behind the new 1718 Acis was literary. Three prestigious humanists had a hand in penning the libretto: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and John Gay, librettist of the wildly successful Beggar’s Opera.
The Sinfonia to Acis presents a bustling, rustic atmosphere in which the excitement of the ensuing drama is palpable. Handel favors the brilliant Italianate string writing, which continues headlong until the unexpected deceptive cadence ushers in a poignant Adagio ending. This leads to the opening shepherd’s chorus, “O Pleasure of the plains,” marked by its drone bass and numerous pastoral touches. The B section alternates between passages for soloist and chorus. Our performance tonight reinforces that choruses for Handel and his contemporaries were usually nothing more than 8-10 erstwhile soloists.

(c) Jason Stell