Wednesday 2 December 2009 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Philippe Jaroussky &
Concerto Cologne
Simon Fowler/Virgin Classics
Arias by Handel & J. C. Bach
tonight’s programme
Philippe Jaroussky & Concerto Cologne
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Solomon, HWV 67 (1749) – The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
Johann Christian Bach (1735–82)
Artaserse, G1 (1760) – No, che non ha la sorte … Vo solcando un mar crudele
George Frideric Handel
Tolomeo, re di Egitto, HWV 25 (1728) – Inumano fratel … Stille amare
Water Music, HWV 348–50 (1717) – Suite No. 1 in F major: Overture; Adagio e staccato; Minuet; Air; Andante
Johann Christian Bach
Carattaco, G7 (1767) – Perfida Cartismandua! … Fra l’orrore
George Frideric Handel
Alcina, HWV 34 (1735) – Sta nell’Ircana
INTERVAL
Johann Christian Bach
Adriano in Siria, G6 (1765) – Cara, la dolce fiamma
Harpsichord Concerto in F minor
George Frideric Handel
Ariodante, HWV 33 (1735) – Scherza, infida
Johann Christian Bach
Temistocle, G8 (1772) – Ch’io parta? … Ma pensa
2
programme note
Two Gentlemen of London
J. C. Bach, Handel and the trials of the London opera scene
On 10 April 1782 Mozart wrote from Vienna to his father in
Salzburg: ‘I go every Sunday at 12 o’clock to the Baron van
Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach.’ In
this instance, Mozart was referring to the great Johann
Sebastian Bach, but hitherto the young Austrian genius had
probably associated the surname Bach above all with the
Leipzig cantor’s youngest son, Johann Christian. As
numerous historians and musicians fond of the neglected
generation of mid-18th century composers frequently remind
us, the famous and great composer ‘Bach’ in the 1760s was
not the figure behind the Brandenburg Concertos and the
Mass in B minor, but his youngest son, whose many works
that achieved enormous success in his own lifetime are
nowadays all but forgotten.
It was not always like this. The young Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart first met J. C. Bach during a trip to London in 1764,
where he flawlessly sightread the older man’s music at the
keyboard, in front of the British royal family. Bach, often
nicknamed ‘the London Bach’, was impressed and took the
8-year-old Salzburger under his wing (although it is not
strictly true to claim that J. C. Bach was Mozart’s teacher). It is
unlikely that Johann Sebastian’s name was even mentioned
much, not least because J. C. was the black sheep of the
Bach clan. The 18th of J. S. Bach’s 20 children – and the 11th
of 13 born to his second wife Anna Magdalena – was born
in Leipzig on 5 September 1735. He was reputedly his
father’s favourite, and consequently pampered, and
probably started having harpsichord lessons from his father
at the age of 9. After Johann Sebastian’s death in 1750, the
14-year-old went to live with his older half-brother and
guardian, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in Berlin. His musical
education continued under C. P. E.’s tutorship, but Frederick
the Great’s sponsorship of lavish operatic entertainments
caught J. C.’s imagination, and he soon thirsted for a career
as a composer of Italian operas (a path utterly incongruous
to that taken by the rest of his large musical family; it is also
likely that he was stifled by his brother’s guardianship). In
early summer 1755, the ambitious young man – reputedly
something of a womaniser – travelled to Italy. By 1756, the
year of Mozart’s birth, J. C. Bach (hereafter simply known as
‘Bach’) had moved to Milan, where he obtained a post as
music director to the Milanese nobleman Count Agostino
Litta, wrote several splendid Latin sacred works, and
converted to Roman Catholicism. One may imagine that his
family was mortified.
His compositional skills flourished under the kind supervision
of the famous teacher Padre Giovanni Battista Martini in
Bologna, and in 1760 the Teatro Regio in Turin commissioned
3
programme note
Bach to compose his first entirely original new opera; he
chose to set Pietro Metastasio’s Artaserse. The cast included
the celebrated castrati Gaetano Guadagni (who premiered
the title-role in Gluck’s Orfeo in Vienna two years later) and
Carlo Nicolini. The magnificent scene at the end of Act 1
culminates in the aria ‘Vo solcando un mar crudele’, in which
the persecuted Arbace (Guadagni) sings a tempestuous aria,
with the orchestra vividly conveying the raging elements,
while the hero remains resolute.
Meanwhile, in 1764 he began to collaborate with the virtuoso
viol player Carl Friedrich Abel, a partnership which would
later evolve into a pioneering attempt to establish regular
subscription concert series in the British capital.
Bach’s next new opera Adriano in Siria (1765) was also set
to a libretto by Metastasio. This serious drama was not
particularly well received, but the new castrato Manzuoli was
accorded adulation. One of his arias was ‘Cara, la dolce
fiamma’, which begins with a perfect opportunity for the
By the late summer of 1762 Bach was in London (which
singer to display his messa di voice, and proceeds to show
remained his principal base for the rest of his life). As several off the skill and dramatic prowess of the singer in a ravishing
generations had discovered before him, the production of
love aria. Two years later, Bach’s next opera, Carattaco, was
Italian operas on the stage of the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, unveiled at the King’s Theatre. This was enthusiastically
was fraught with practical and commercial difficulties.
received, and perhaps Bach’s attempt to integrate choruses
London’s Italian operatic life was undergoing a depressing
appealed to those who had come to venerate Handel’s
slump in quality and fortunes, and Bach, initially mortified by oratorios; one anonymous critic praised Bach as ‘a second
the poor quality ensemble with which he had to work, was
Handel’, come to ‘once again restore that elegance and
persuaded to direct the opera season from November 1762 perfection we have for some time been strangers to’. The plot
until June 1763. His first original London opera, Orione, was concerns the Celtic king Caractacus’s defiance of the Roman
well received, not least by the enthusiastic King George III
emperor Claudius. The title-role was written for the castrato
and Queen Charlotte. Despite being prevented from gaining Tommaso Guarducci, and in Act 2 he performed a thrilling
a permanent official position at the King’s Theatre by
soliloquy in which Caractacus reels at his discovery of a
political cabals, Bach enjoyed several huge operatic hits.
betrayal by a close ally (the accompanied recitative ‘Perfida
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programme note
Cartismandua!’), but which then resolves into an eloquent
cavatina in which the character expresses his conflicting
emotions (‘Fra l’orrore’).
A generation before, Handel had also struggled to maintain
consistent success on the London stage. The Saxon-born
composer first arrived in England in autumn 1710, when
he was 25 years old, soon after his appointment as
In 1772 Bach received a commission from the Elector Palatine
Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover (and future King
for an opera to be performed at the prestigious court theatre
George I of Great Britain). He briefly returned to Hanover
in Mannheim, which boasted an orchestra that was reputedly
in the summer of 1711, but by mid-October the following
the finest in Europe. Visiting Germany after a 17-year
year he was back in London. The composer seems to have
absence, Bach responded to the rich orchestral possibilities
preferred the British capital city for the opportunities it gave
by producing the spectacular serious opera Temistocle
him to write new music, especially operas for the Queen’s
(which included Anton Raaff in the title-role, the tenor who
Theatre (re-named the King’s Theatre after the Hanoverian
was later to create the title-role in Mozart’s Idomeneo). The
succession in 1714). He spent the remainder of his life writing,
role of Lisimaco, the ambassador of Athens, was written for
performing, arranging, revising and reviving music theatre
the castrato Silvio Giorgetti, who sang the powerful aria
works in London.
‘Ch’io parta?’ (a defiant response to an insult from Serse, the
king of Persia, that progresses from dignity to unconstrained Having absented himself from Hanover, it seems that Handel
anger). After Bach’s last London opera, La clemenza di
re-established himself in George I’s favour by providing the
Scipione (1778), his music gradually fell out of fashion, and he Water Music for a royal barge party that travelled from
struggled to continue in the lifestyle to which he had become Whitehall Stairs to Chelsea on the evening of 17 July 1717.
accustomed. His widow was left bankrupt at his death on
Handel’s charming and lively music was a triumphant
1 January 1782, with not even the financial support of the
success; the King was delighted with it, and ordered it to be
Queen able to save her from returning to Italy to live out her repeated several times. Handel and about 50 musicians
last years in poverty.
under his direction were located in another open barge that
sailed nearby to the king’s vessel, and the unusual outdoor
5
programme note
concert was considered remarkable enough to warrant a
prominent report in the London newspapers. Two years later
a group of aristocratic opera patrons founded the Royal
Academy of Music, an opera company devoted to producing
Italian operas in London; they appointed Handel as music
director. Beset by political and financial challenges, the last
opera Handel wrote for the company’s final season was
Tolomeo, re di Egitto (1728), which reaches its intense
dramatic climax late in Act 3 when the innocent and
persecuted Tolomeo falls unconscious after defiantly
drinking what he believes is a deadly potion (‘Stille amare’).
For the 1734–5 season Handel relocated to John Rich’s
recently built theatre at Covent Garden. His next new opera
was Ariodante: the title-hero (sung by the castrato Giovanni
Carestini) is tricked into believing that his fiancée Ginevra has
committed adultery with the unpleasant schemer Polinesso
(who desires both Ginevra and the Scottish throne for
himself). The distraught Ariodante decides to kill himself, but
vows that his ghost will haunt Ginevra (‘Scherza, infida’).
Some of Handel’s most ravishing slow music, with a telling
contribution from bassoon, illustrate the hero’s devastation.
The season concluded triumphantly with Handel’s new
magical opera Alcina, in which the penitent adulterer
Ruggiero is restored to his senses, and is roused to heroic
action in defiance of the malign sorceress Alcina (‘Sta
nell’Ircana’). After 1741 Handel never wrote or performed an
Italian opera in London again, but during the next decade he
created a succession of varied and innovative Englishlanguage concert dramas (most of them Biblical oratorios).
‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ is a relatively modern
nickname, and an implausible one at that, for a flamboyant
short sinfonia that opens Part 3 of Handel’s magnificent
oratorio Solomon (1749).
Although J. C. Bach was considered by some Londoners to
be the new Handel, a comparison of their music in this
evening’s concert instead underlines the strongly distinctive
stylistic differences between the two operatic masters of the
King’s Theatre. Handel’s reputation as an opera composer
has been thoroughly restored in modern times and we can
only hope that Philippe Jaroussky’s ardent championing of
the youngest, Catholic and fun-loving member of the Bach
family will set the ball rolling for him too.
Programme note © David Vickers
6
text and translation
Johann Christian Bach
Artaserse – No, che non ha la sorte … Vo solcando
un mar crudele
No, che non ha la sorte
più sventure per me. Tutte in un giorno,
tutte, oh Dio, le provai.
Perdo l’amico, m’insulta la germana,
m’accusa il genitor, piange il mio bene
e tacer mi conviene,
e non posso parlar.
Dove si trova un anima che sia
tormentata così come la mia?
Ma, giusti dei, pietà! Se a questo passo
lo sdegno vostro a danno mio s’avanza,
pretendete da me troppa costanza.
No, destiny has no more misfortunes
in store for me. In a single day
I have suffered them all:
the loss of my friend, the insults of my sister,
my father’s accusations, my beloved’s tears,
and I must remain silent,
I cannot speak out.
Where is another soul as
tormented as mine to be found?
But mercy, just gods! If your anger
is aimed at harming me,
you expect of me too much constancy.
Vo solcando un mar crudele
senza vele e senza sarte:
freme l’onda e il ciel s’imbruna,
cresce il vento e manca l’arte,
e il voler della fortuna
son costretto a seguitar.
Infelice! in questo stato
son da tutti abbandonato:
meco è sola l’innocenza
che mi porta a naufragar.
I must plough a cruel sea
without sails or rigging:
the waves are surging, the sky darkening,
the wind building, and I cannot steer,
I have no choice but to follow
the will of destiny.
Poor wretch! in this state
am I by all abandoned:
my only companion is innocence,
and it is leading me toward shipwreck.
Pietro Metastasio
George Frideric Handel
Tolomeo, re di Egitto – Inumano fratel … Stille
amare
Inumano fratel, barbara madre,
ingiusto Araspe, dispietata Elisa,
Numi, o furie del Ciel,
Cielo nemico,
implacabil destin, tiranna sorte,
tutti v’invito a gustare
il piacer della mia morte.
Ma tu, consorte amata, non pianger,
Inhuman brother, barbarous mother,
unjust Araspe, pitiless Elisa,
gods, o furies of heaven,
inimical heaven,
implacable destiny, tyrannous fate,
I bid you all savour
the sweet taste of my death.
But you, beloved wife, weep not,
please turn page quietly
7
text and translation
no, mentre che lieto spiro;
basta che ad incontrar l’anima mia,
quando uscirà dal sen,
mandi un sospiro.
no, for I am happy to die;
all I ask is that on seeing my soul
as it leaves my breast,
you utter a sigh.
Stille amare, già vi sento
tutte in seno, la morte a chiamar;
già vi sento smorzare il tormento,
già vi sento tornarmi a bear.
Bitter drops, already I feel you
within my breast, summoning death;
already I feel you ease my torment,
I feel you return me to joy.
Nicola Francesco Haym
Johann Christian Bach
Carattaco – Perfida Cartismandua … Fra l’orrore
Perfida Cartismandua!
Carattaco infelice!
Oh patria afflitta!
Piango il tuo fato, il mio non già.
Tu sei nel mio cader oppressa.
Ecco perduto il sudor che mi costi,
il sangue tuo inonda le campagne,
i tuoi guerrieri son trafitti o dispersi,
in lacci avvinte le vergini, le spose.
Il ferro, il foco secondano le furie
della tiranna Roma.
E il mal più grande, che paragon non ha,
Numi, è il sapere nel lutto universale
che vi manca un compenso a tanto male.
Treacherous Cartismandua!
Wretched Caractacus!
O my martyred homeland!
I weep for your fate, not yet for my own.
My downfall has led to your servitude.
The sweat I shed for you is wasted,
the land is soaked in your blood,
your warriors are dead or scattered,
your girls and women in fetters.
This destruction by sword and flame
is backed by the furies of tyrannous Rome.
And the greatest evil, one without equal,
is knowing in this universal mourning
that nothing will atone for your suffering.
Fra l’orrore di tanto spavento,
qualor penso alla patria che geme,
l’alma in seno mi palpita e freme,
mortal gelo mi piomba sul cor.
Amid the horror of such dread fear,
when I think of my suffering homeland,
my soul trembles and quakes in my breast,
a deathly chill descends upon my heart.
Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli
8
text and translation
George Frideric Handel
Alcina – Sta nell’Ircana
Sta nell’Ircana
pietrosa tana
tigre sdegnosa
e incerta pende,
se parte o attende
il cacciator.
Dal teso strale
guardarsi vuole:
ma poi la prole
lascia in periglio.
Freme e l’assale
desio di sangue,
pietà del figlio,
poi vince amor.
In her rocky
Hyrcanian lair
lurks an angry
tigress, unsure
whether to run
or await the hunter.
She wants to save herself
from his arrow,
but that would mean
leaving her young in danger.
She shivers, torn between
bloodlust and
maternal devotion,
the victor is love.
adapted from Ludovico Ariosto’s ‘Orlando furioso’
Johann Christian Bach
Adriano in Siria – Cara, la dolce fiamma
Cara, la dolce fiamma dell’alma mia tu sei.
E negli affetti miei costante ognor sarò.
Serena il tuo bel volto, il lungo suo rigore
il fato già cambiò.
Beloved, you are the flame aglow in my soul.
And my affections will never falter.
Let smiles return to your fair face, fate has now
put an end to your suffering.
Pietro Metastasio
please turn page quietly
9
text and translation
George Frideric Handel
Ariodante – Scherza, infida
Scherza, infida, in grembo al drudo,
io tradito a morte in braccio
per tua colpa ora men vo.
Ma a spezzar l’indegno laccio,
ombra mesta e spirto ignudo,
per tua pena io tornerò.
Laugh, faithless woman, in your lover’s arms,
betrayed, I go now into the arms of death,
and the fault is yours.
Yet I shall return in spirit,
a melancholy shade, to torment you
and shatter your shameful union.
adapted from Antonio Salvi’s libretto based on Ludovico
Ariosto’s ‘Orlando furioso’
Johann Christian Bach
Temistocle – Ch’io parta? … Ma pensa
Ch’io parta?
Il commando tacendo rispetto.
I must take my leave?
Silently I obey the command.
Ma pensa che quando
ristretto è il torrente,
se inonda la sponda
spumoso e fremente
di mille bifolchi
la speme fra i solchi
portando sen va.
La pace se sdegni,
se guerra ti piace,
vedrai ne’ tuoi regni
chi adesso qui tace
tornar qual torrente
che altero e fremente
di mille bifolchi
la speme fra i solchi
portando sen va.
Yet reflect, when
a torrent is held back,
once its banks burst,
foaming and frothing
it floods the furrows
dug by a thousand ploughmen,
carrying hope away with it.
If peace you scorn,
if war pleases you,
you will see the man
who now keeps silent
return to your realm
like the raging torrent
that floods the furrows
dug by a thousand ploughmen,
carrying hope away with it.
Pietro Metastasio
Translations © Susannah Howe
10
about the performers
About tonight’s performers
Simon Fowler
singing Vivaldi’s Nisi dominus and
Pergolesi’s Stabat mater. Appearances
at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
include Nerone in Handel’s Agrippina
and several Vivaldi operas with
Ensemble Matheus and JeanChristophe Spinosi.
Philippe Jaroussky countertenor
The countertenor Philippe Jaroussky
began his musical training as a
violinist before turning to singing,
earning a diploma from the Paris
Conservatoire’s Early Music
department. He has continued his
studies with Nicole Fallien since 1996.
In 2004 he was voted Operatic
Revelation of the Year at the Victoires
de la Musique Classique.
He made his debut in 1999,
performing at the Royaumont and
Ambronay festivals in Scarlatti’s
oratorio Sedecia with Il Seminario
Musicale and Gérard Lesne. With
La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du
Roy and Jean-Claude Malgoire, he
performed in three Monteverdi
operas, as well as appearing as
Arbace (Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica) and
Recent appearances include Telemaco
in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in
patria at the Berlin State Opera,
directed by René Jacobs; Eustazio in
Handel’s Rinaldo at the Flanders
Opera, directed by Andreas Spering;
and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the
Théâtre du Châtelet, featuring Jessye
Norman and directed by Marc
Minkowski. Philippe Jaroussky’s first
recital at the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées – with Le Concert d’Astrée and
Emmanuelle Haïm, and devoted to the
repertoire of the castrato Carestini –
received a warm critical reception.
His many recordings include three
award-winning discs with his own
group, Ensemble Artaserse – of works
by Benedetto Ferrari, virtuoso Vivaldi
cantatas, and 17th-century Italian
music in honour of the Virgin Mary.
Concerto Cologne
Concerto Cologne was founded in
1985, and quickly made a name for
itself among period-instrument
orchestras. Thoroughly researched
interpretations brought to the stage
with a new vivacity soon became its
trademark, paving the way to
appearances at leading concert halls
and music festivals. It has undertaken
extensive tours throughout the USA,
South-East Asia, Canada, Latin
America, Japan, Israel and most
of Europe.
Its discography numbers over 50 CDs
for a variety of labels, many of which
have gained awards, including a
Grammy, the German Record Critics’
Award, Diapason d’Année and
Diapason d'Or. Its recent disc
Symphonies received a 2009 Echo
Klassik Award.
Since 2005 Martin Sandhoff has been
Artistic Director of the orchestra. In
addition to concertmasters from
within Concerto Cologne, external
concertmasters are also engaged
on a regular basis. The ensemble,
which is flexible in size, performs
predominantly without a conductor,
11
about the performers
but for large-scale pieces it works with
such luminaries as René Jacobs,
Marcus Creed, Daniel Harding,
Evelino Pidò, Ivor Bolton, David Stern,
Daniel Reuss, Pierre Cao, Laurence
Equilbey and Emmanuelle Haïm.
Further musical partners include the
mezzo-sopranos Cecilia Bartoli,
Waltraud Meier, Magdalena Kožená,
Vivica Genaux and Jennifer Larmore,
the sopranos Natalie Dessay, Patricia
Petibon, Malin Hartelius and
Véronique Gens, the countertenors
Andreas Scholl, Matthias Rexroth and
Philippe Jaroussky, the tenor Christoph
Prégardien, the pianist Andreas Staier,
the actors Bruno Ganz and Ulrich
Tukur and the director Peter Sellars, as
well as the Balthasar Neumann Choir,
the NDR Choir, the RIAS Chamber
Choir, Accentus and Arsys de
Bourgogne.
Concerto Cologne
Violin I
Markus Hoffmann
Chiharu Abe
Jörg Buschhaus
Frauke Pöhl
Volker Möller
Hedwig van der Linde
Cello
Werner Matzke
Jan Kunkel
Sibylle Huntgeburth
Violin II
Stephan Sänger
Horst-Peter Steffen
Antje Engel
Wolfgang von Kessinger
Jana Chytilova
Kristin Deeken
Flute
Cordula Breuer
Marion Moonen
Viola
Aino Hildebrandt
Gabrielle Kancachian
Anna Gärtner
Delphine Blanc
Bassoon
Lorenzo Alpert
A partnership with leading audio
specialists MBL was established in
October.
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Sharp Print Limited; advertising by
Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)
Please make sure that all digital watch alarms and mobile phones are switched off during the
performance. In accordance with the requirements of the licensing authority, sitting or standing
in any gangway is not permitted. Smoking is not permitted anywhere on the Barbican premises.
No eating or drinking is allowed in the auditorium. No cameras, tape recorders or any other
recording equipment may be taken into the hall.
12
Double Bass
Francesco Savignano
Christian Berghoff-Flüel
Oboe
Andreas Helm
Diego Nadra
Horn
Erwin Wieringa
Kathrin Williner
Harpsichord
Nicolau de Figueiredo
Barbican Centre
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