#jephtha

The composition of "Jephtha" cost Handel much effort, not through any block in his inspiration but because his health and sight were failing. He began the score on January 21, 1751 and finished it on August 30 of the same year. For a man who worked as rapidly as Handel this was an exceptionally long time; but there was a pause of three-and-a-half months between the end of February and the middle of June, part of which he spent in search of health at the watering places of Bath and Cheltenham. The autograph bears painful signs of struggle: after the first section of the chorus "How dark, o Lord, are Thy decrees" at the end of Act II, he noted (in German): "Reached here on 13 Febr. 1751, unable to go on owing to weakening of the sight of my left eye." He resumed work ten days later (on his sixty-sixth birthday), but the shaky notes, often without stems, reflect the difficulties under which he laboured. (...) Handel's theme is the necessity of man's submission to destiny. He announces it at the outset by setting the first words of the oratorio, "It must be so," as a solemn accompanied recitative on its own. The same words recur (to a similar musical phrase) in the great recitative "Deeper and deeper still," in which Jephtha tries to steel himself to kill the daughter whose heroic self-abnegation has heaped coals of fire on his head. It is in the chorus that follows, "How dark, o Lord, are Thy decrees," perhaps the profoundest music he ever wrote, that Handel explores the idea to its limits. It culminates in a grim acceptance of Pope's maxim from the "Essay of Man": "Whatever is, is right" (Morell wrote "What God ordains is right," and this was the original reading of Handel's autograph).

“My father,” she said, “you have made a vow to the Lord. Do to me what you have vowed to do, for the Lord has taken vengeance for you upon your enemies, the Ammonites.  

Only let me do this one thing, my father,” she continued, “may I roam around the hill country to mourn my virginity, for I will never marry.”

Judges 11:36-37

Ann Hallenberg is so good

I have to admit that my exploration path towards a better understanding of baroque opera has been long and thorny, and I am still far away from becoming an aficionado of that era in music. Nevertheless, I am not giving up and looking to learn more, as a better understanding of the topic brings acceptance and admiration. Thus, seeing a combination of world-renowned baroque specialist William…