#haendel

Bon Soir 🎹 🎻🃏👌🎼

Georg Friedrich Haendel 🎵 Sarabande

source : @cheminer-poesie-cressant

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l’automne repeuple tout un monde perdu rien y fait la perte est un dialogue constant avec tout ce qui est présent une renaissance de plus qui s'engage avec bienveillance à tout ce qui dit ne plus être

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autumn repopulates an entire lost world. nothing can change that loss is a constant dialogue with everything that is present another rebirth begins, engaging with kindness toward all that says no longer to be

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l’autunno ripopola tutto un mondo perduto niente vi cambia qualcosa la perdita è un dialogo costante con tutto ciò che è presente un’ennesima rinascita che si impegna con benevolenza verso tutto ciò che dice di non essere più

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© Pierre Cressant (jeudi 14 novembre 2024)

As we're slowly preparing for Advent (playlist is ready for each and every Sunday), I thought it was the best moment to share with you this gem:

Aksel Rykkvin was only 13 and a boy treble in Oslo's Cathedral Choir, when he recorded this well-known aria of Haendel's Samson oratorio. I am not very sure he is aware of what is happening to him here (something that happens all the time with writers, singers, actors, etc), but the result is simply spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that you'd quickly forget and forgive a light falsetto and the understandable lack of depth.

For those keen enough to compare, the best rendition is Dame Joan Sutherland's, of course. A wonderful, mature, supremely mastered voice. But we're talking about something completely different, here. This is pure grace and there wasn't a single dry eye in that Oslo concert hall by the end of that concert.

Spectacular and fragile. Almost immediately after this recording, his voice changed. He is now a very good barytone I am closely following on socials (oh, yes, there isn't only OL in this life!).

Kate Lindsey being extremely chaotic as Nero

I am creating a dark academia playlist to use while studying and reading books and I already have a wide range of numbers and songs, from austrian and russian waltzes to the hymn of the Cherubim.

Happy New Year, wonderful followers! I’m thrilled to begin the new year with a brand new series here at Musica in Extenso. Many of you may know that I run a teen opera program as part of my real-world job, and because the voices of my teens are still so much in development, most of the repertoire we work with comes from the early Classical period and before—the bulk of it landing solidly in the Baroque period.

When I was a young singer, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I wasn’t encouraged to spend much time with Baroque opera. I don’t know whether this was because my voice wasn’t well-suited to it, or because it was a given at the time that no real career could be had singing Baroque opera in the U.S., but for whatever reason, I had very little exposure to the music from this period, outside of orchestra concerts I attended while at school. Because of that, it’s been one of my greatest pleasures as a teacher to have the opportunity to really immerse myself in the incredibly rich music from this period, learning along with my students.

Perhaps my most astonishing discovery along this journey was a new and abiding love for the works of George Frideric Handel. For someone whose exposure to Handel was not much more than community chorus performances of Messiah, the breadth and genius of his operatic works was, frankly, a complete shock. And wow, what a shock!  It seems fitting then, that I’d begin my new Baroque Music series with a week celebrating his work.

For my first selection, I’d like to share a performance that literally brought me and several of my teen students to tears when we first watched it together. Joyce DiDonato’s performance as the title character in Ariodante, produced at Carnegie Hall with The English Concert was a revelation for us all. There, without the benefit of costumes, lights, sets, or any of the other elements we associate with world-class theater, Joyce brought us to tears in this rendition of “Scherza infida” with glorious phrasing, emotion-packed ornamentation, and a deep understanding of the character, who has lost himself in anger and grief over something that ultimately turns out to be a lie. Performances like this are the kind that can change lives, making something hundreds of years old feel vital and relevant to even the youngest among us.