This page was updated 17 May 2009

The Saxon Thunderbolt It was in Italy that Handel forged his operatic identity. Arriving there in 1706, his youthful output included the celebrated Dixit Dominus, the oratorio La Resurrezione, and the opera Agrippina. Most numerous amongst his works were the cantatas, which were written largely for Handel's patrons in Rome where opera was banned by papal decree. These cathartic works are essentially mini-operas and often explore that most human of themes - unrequited love. Throughout 2009, the festival is collaborating with the Handel House Museum and the British Harpsichord Society in putting on all of Handel's authenticated cantatas scored for solo voice and continuo alone, together with all his keyboard works. Many of these little known continuo cantatas later infiltrated Handel's operas for the London stage, and their direct emotional impact beautifully anticipates the now acclaimed status of Handel's operas and oratorios.                         Julian Perkins 2008

Tuesday 24 February 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
A Triple Anniversary
Clara Mouriz mezzo-soprano
Julian Perkins harpsichord

Handel continuo cantata:
Oh numi eterni (‘La Lucrezia’) HWV 145
Purcell Chaconne and Variations in G major HWV 435
Fairest Isle
FJ Haydn Arianna a Naxos
Purcell Solo songs

2009 is certainly an auspicious year for composers' anniversaries. It also calls for the celebration of creative  deference: Handel was embarrassed even to be compared to Purcell, while Haydn's attendance at a performance of Messiah in Westminster Abbey may well have inspired the spawning of The Creation. But first, we encounter what is possibly Handel's most dramatic and emotionally demanding cantata, Oh numi eterni. It opens with Lucretia in the horrific aftermath of her rape by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the Etruscan King of Rome. The music vacillates uncontrollably between the fury and despair that leads, ultimately, to Lucretia's suicide.

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Thursday 26 February 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
Care selve...
Suzana Ograjenšek soprano
Henrik Persson violoncello
Julian Perkins harpsichord

Handel continuo cantatas:
Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a
Care selve, aure grate HWV 88
Manca pur quanto sai HWV 129
Suite in G minor HWV 452
Impertinence in G minor HWV 494
Menuet in B-flat major HWV 550
F Geminiani Sonata in C major for 'cello and continuo, op5 no3

Whilst the singer impatiently awaits the return of his beloved Clori in Lungi dal mio, performers of Care selve beg to be transformed into a branch, stone or flower, so that they can at least kiss the 'beautiful feet' of an untrusting Clori. In Manca pur, it is the singer, 'unconquered by every grave offence', who bestows forgiveness on a treacherous Tirsi.
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Monday 2 March 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
Nell'Africane selve
Lisandro Abadie baritone
Anna Tilbrook harpsichord

Handel continuo cantatas:
Nell'Africane selve HWV 136a
Dalla guerra amorosa HWV 102
Sonata in C major HWV 578

Handel and Africa are hardly an obvious pairing. Nevertheless, Handel's Nell'Africane selve summons forth the proverbial prospect of proud lions and hissing serpents, demanding the extremes of the baritone range. By contrast, Dalla guerra amorosa is more restrained - though no less expressive; its second aria, 'La bellezza è com'un fiore' ("Beauty is like a  flower"), is a ravishing lullaby.
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Tuesday 3 March 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
The Jolly Young Waterman
Greg Tassell tenor 
Christopher Bucknall harpsichord
Sally Woods violoncello
Handel continuo cantatas:
Sei pur bella, pur vezzosa
('La bianca rosa') HWV 160a
Da sete ardente afflitto HWV 100
Aure soavi, e lieti HWV 84
Suite in D minor HWV 437
Menuet in F major HWV 518
Thomas Arne Cymon and Iphigenia
Charles Dibdin The Jolly Young Waterman

The licentious ways of Arne's Cymon and Iphigenia, in which a lady of leisure seduces an impressionable youth, are countered by the contemplation of a white rose's supposedly innocent beauty in Handel's Sei pur bella. Da sete ardente uses the metaphor of 'a burning thirst' to denote the anguish of the singer's separation from the beloved, a 'friendly stream'. Similarly, the 'soft and delightful breezes' of Aure soavi offer little comfort to the 'thousand flames' of the singer's heart.
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Monday 9 March 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
Mi palpita il cor
Kate Semmens soprano
Emma Murphy recorder
Steven Devine harpsichord
Nicholas Stringfellow violoncello

Handel cantata for soprano with obbligato recorder:
Nel dolce dell'oblio HWV 134
Mi palpita il cor HWV 132a
Suite in B-flat major HWV 440
Menuet in G minor HWV 536
Sonata for recorder in D minor, op1 no9a HWV 367a
Sonata for recorder in C major, op1 no7 HWV 365
'La Folia', Division Upon a Ground
'Greensleeves to a Ground'
'Bellamira', Division Upon a Ground from The Division Flute, (1706/08)

Unlike most of the other cantatas in this series, Nel dolce is a reasoned response to love in which the singer describes the sleeping and dreaming of the beloved, Phyllis. Similarly, the keyboard suite has a restrained quality that perhaps indicates Handel's indebtedness to Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Jacob Froberger. The Allmand's figurations frequently echo the opening variations to the renowned Air, The Harmonious Blacksmith, that ends Handel's suite in E major, HWV 430, and the highly ornamented Saraband is infused with lyrical pathos. Mi palpita, on the other hand, begins with heartfelt  "palpitations" from the singer who later declaims: 'The dart of love wounded me, and the fatal arrow struck me.'
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Tuesday 10 March 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
Purcell and the Restoration Stage
The Oboe Band
Frances Norbury oboes, Joel Raymond oboes,
Rebecca Stockwell bassoon & Sarah Humphreys oboes Purcell Overture to the Gordian Knot Untyed
Paisible The Humors of John Falstaff
Lenton The Moor of Venice (Shakespearian)
Purcell Abdelazer
Paisible Oroonoko
Lenton The Fair Penitent and Tamberlain (tragedies)
Purcell The Old Bachelor (comedy), with the
movements interspersed in a summary of the farcical plot.
Purcell Chaconne from King Arthur (or The Fairy Queen)

'Every play in Restoration London had music composed especially for it; The Oboe Band explores Purcell and his colleagues' rich contributions to pastorals and Shakespeare, tragedies and comedies by Congreve, Cibber, Aphra Behn and others.'
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Thursday 12 March 1-2pm
St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, W1
Nella stagion...
Erica Eloff soprano
Nathan Vale tenor
Winners of the HSC 2006 & 2008
Erik Dippenaar harpsichord
Handel continuo cantatas (soprano):
Mentre il tutto è in furore HWV 130
Nella stagion che di viole e rose HWV 137
Del bel idolo mio HWV 104
Caro autor di mia doglia HWV 182a
Cecilia, volgi un sguardo HWV 89
Preludio e Allegro in G minor HWV 574
Capriccio in G minor HWV 483
Prélude in F major HWV 567
Fugue in F major HWV 611

Set in the context of war, Mentre il tutto is addressed to he 'soft love' of Fileno and even paraphrases Caesar's renowned  statement, 'veni, vidi, vici'. Sung to Amarilli, Nella stagion evokes the flowers that 'smile in the meadow' with triplet quaver patterns, and the agonies of loyalty scorned with angular vocal leaps.

Music even overcomes death in the Orphic tale of Del bel idolo, in which a lover descends into the 'horrid thresholds' of hell to rescue their beloved, Nice.
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