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1 CD -
8.43927 ZS - (p) 1988
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Georg
Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
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Giulio Cesare
(Highlights)
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Oper in drei Akten von Nicola
Haym |
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- Ouverture (Grave),
Allegro |
2' 52" |
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1 |
- Nr. 1. Coro "Viva il
nostro Alcide" (Non troppo allegro) |
1' 51" |
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2
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- Nr. 2. Aria,
Cesare "Presti ormai l'Egizia terra" (Allegro) |
2' 33" |
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3
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- Nr. 4.
Aria, Cornelia "Priva son d'ogni
conforto" (Allegro) |
6' 06" |
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4
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- Recitativo, Sesto
"Vani sono i lamenti" |
0' 27" |
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5
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- Nr. 5. Aria,
Sesto "Svegliatevi nel core" (Allegro/Largo) |
4' 55" |
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6
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- Nr. 12. Aria,
Sesto "Cara speme, questo core" (Largo) |
5' 41" |
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7
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- Nr. 14. Aria, Cesare
"Va tacito e nascosto" (Andante, e
piano) |
6' 14" |
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8
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- Nr. 22. Aria, Cornelia
"Cessa omai di sospirare!" (Andante) |
3' 59" |
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9
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- Nr. 27. Aria,
Cleopatra "Se pietà di me non senti" (Largo) |
9' 41" |
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10
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- Sinfonia bellica (Allegro) |
0' 48" |
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11
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- Nr. 37. Aria,
Cleopatra "Da tempeste il legno infranto"
(Allegro) |
6' 13" |
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12
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- Sinfonia. La Marche |
3' 19" |
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13
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- Nr. 40. Coro e Duetto
"Ritorni ormai nel nostro core" (Bourée) |
3' 24" |
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14
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Paul Esswood,
Giulio Cesare
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Roberta Alexander,
Cleopatra
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Lucia Popp, Cleopatra (Nr.
40) |
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Marjana Lipovśek,
Cornelia |
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Ann Murray, Sesto |
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Arnold-Schönberg-Chor
/ Erwin G. Ortner, Leitung |
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CONCENTUS MUSICUS WIEN (mit
Originalinstrumenten)
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Alice Harnoncourt, Violine |
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Marie Wolf, Oboe, Blockflöte |
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Anita Mitterer, Violine |
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Valerie Darke, Oboe |
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Andrea Bischof, Violine |
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Jürg Schaeftlein, Oboe |
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Peter Schoberwalter, Violine |
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Sem Kegley, Oboe |
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Erich Höbarth, Violine |
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Leopold Stastny, Traversière, Blockflöte |
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Karl Höffinger, Violine |
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Milan Turković, Fagott |
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Walter Pfeiffer, Violine |
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Stepan Turnovsky, Fagott |
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Helmut Mitter, Violine |
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Michael Höltzel, Naturhorn |
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Peter Matzka, Violine |
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Elmar Eisner, Naturhorn |
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Anjuta Grabowski, Violine |
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Alois Schlor, Naturhorn |
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Regina Schröder, Violine |
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Matthias Ramb, Naturhorn |
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Kurt Theiner, Viola |
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Friedemann Immer, Naturtrompete
in D |
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Josef de Sordi, Viola |
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Richard Rudolf, Naturtrompete in
D
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Herwig Tachezi, Violoncello |
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Hermann Schober, Naturtrompete in
D
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Rudolf Leopold, Violoncello |
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Herbert Tachezi, Cembalo, Orgel |
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Eduard Hruza, Violone |
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Gordon Murray, Cembalo, Orgel |
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Kurt Hammer, Pauken |
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Edward Witsenburg, Barockharfe |
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Theorbe, Luca Pianca |
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Gesamtleitung |
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Luogo e data
di registrazione
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Vienna (Austria) - aprile 1984
e maggio 1985 |
Registrazione
live / studio
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studio |
Producer / Engineer
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Prima Edizione
CD
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Teldec - 8.43927 ZS - (1
cd) - 58' 26" - (p) 1988 - DDD
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Prima
Edizione LP
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Notes
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“Giulio Cesare”,
composed as a direct ’neighbour’ to
the two other masterpieces “Tamerlano”
(1724) and “Rodelinda” (1725) and
premièred on 20th
February 1724 in the King’s Theatre,
Haymarket, is not only one of the most
important of all Handel’s operas - it
also helped its creator to win his first
victory in a war so rich in both
triumphs and defeats - the London
opera war. In 1719 a group of noblemen
under the patronage of the King had
founded a joint-stock company with the
name “Royal Academy of Music”,
appointing Handel as its musical
director. The “Royal
Academy”, not to be confused with the
present-day college of the same name,
was no more nor less than an operatic
venture intended not only to entertain
wealthy noblemen, but also to make a
profit. Handel, wo had engaged firstclass
Italian singers in Düsseldorf
und Dresden for the newly-founded
company, did not remain sole musical
director for long. True to the old
trader’s motto that competition is
good for business, the shareholders
soon saw fit to appoint a second and
in due course even a third composer in
the hope of increasing the appeal of
the new opera house and thus the
box-office takings. One of these two
composers was the same Giovanni
Bononcini whose opers “Il trionfo di
Camilla” was the most frequently
performed work of a whole epoch.
“Camilla” was the first
international repertoire opera, so to
speak, and was given over a hundred
times in London alone well into the
time of the feuds. A musical rivalry
sprang up between Handel and
Bononcini, which the partisans of the
two composers were quick to expand
into a political controversy. Since
Handel enjoyed the open protection of
the King, the anti-royalist took
Bononcini’s side. Both composers wrote
one opera aner another in rapid
succession, as if they were trying to
occupy further ground with them.
Handel finally managed to vanquish his
rival from the field
for once and for all with “Giulio
Cesare”. Bonocini left the Royal
Academy, and Handel remained the sole
victor until the famous “War of the
Primadonnas” offered old enmities a
new battlefield two years later.
The uninformed listener wouldn’t know
that “Giulio Cesare” was the decisive
spear-thrust in an opera war - on the
contrary, Handel wrote here perhaps
the most erotic opera music in his
entire oeuvre, music full of deadly
serious love, full of wooing and
seduction, full of tempestuous
passion. In this opera Julius
Caesar appears not as the robust
middle-aged man of history, but as a
soldier and lover full of youthful fire.
And Handel’s musical characterization
of Cleopatra takes the wind out of the
sails of all insistent claims that the
dramatic technique of opera seria,
with its da capo arias
rich in coloratura at the end of a
scene, made psychologically convincing
character portrayal impossible. For in
the course of Handel’s opera,
Cleopatra changes from a frivolous
young beauty to a woman capable of
real love. Among the secondary roles,
Cornelia, Pompey’s widow,
is particularly fine: her tragic
earnest forms a striking contrast to
the highly virtuoso parts of thetwo
main characters.
Although the emphasis was on brilliant
display singing in the operas Handel
wrote at this time - he could command
the services of the world stars of the
period, Senesino and Cuzzoni -,
“Giulio Cesare” is not lacking in
dramatically effective plot. The
London audiences, unable to understand
Italian, would not
have accepted a serious of
incomprehensible secco recitatives and
pretty arias, “Giulio Cesare” offered
spectacle for the eye as well as the
ear: processions and battle turmoil,
attempted and successful murders on
open stage, Arcardian magicianry and
victory celebrations. The fact that
Handel’s opera was triumphant over the
facile charms of Bononcini must
certainly have had something to do
with these external features - above
all, though, with Handel’s ability to
bring theatre figures grippingly to
life with his music.
Silke
Leopold
Translation;
Clive R. Williams
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This
recording was made in the context of a
scenic performance of the work, and
obviously the question presented
itself whether the entire opera should
be recorded and released. We finally
decided in favour of the selection of
music offered here. Unlike Handel’s
oratorios, which can be adapted to
very different types of performance,
his operas are conceived to such an
extent around the visual element that
a complete recording would be
encumbered by far too much primarily
dramatic ballast, such as the secco
recitatives. This would of course be
no problem in the case of a well-known
work, where the listener adds his own
knowledge to what he hears on disc.
But here we felt it was
more important to present the genre
itself and the style of interpretation
we have evolved.
In Giulio Cesare Handel shows
the clash of two fundamentally
different cultures: the Egyptian and
the Roman. With considerable irony and
wit, he both uses and undermines the
old form of the opera seria in the
process. Not since the Italian operas
of Monteverdi and his contemporaries -
i.e. before the crystallisation of the
opera seria with its distinct
characters and prescribed conflicts -
had there been a hero who was at the
same time a figure of ridicule.
The Romans, the embodiment of
order, permanent victors, upholders of
morality and old Roman virtue, are
glorified and ridiculed at one and the
same time Julius
Caesar introduces himself with
the famous line from his own “De Bello
Gallico”: “I came, I saw, I conquered”
- yet Cleopatra is able to twist him
round her little finger with the art
of seduction. At the climax of the war
he falls (or jumps?) into the water
and then crawls back on to land dirty,
exhausted and lonely - “Where are my
legions?”. Is that the way for the
ruler of half the world to behave? He
doesn’t win through his own strength,
but thanks to treacherous accomplices.
Cornelia, Pompey’s widow,
emphasizes time after time that she is
of Roman birth, that she
embodies the ancient Roman virtues and
is thus to be treated with respect and
awe. But at the same time she radiates
such sex appeal that just about every
man she meets - a Roman
general, Tolomeo (the “wicked”
antagonist of Caesar and Cleopatra),
Achilla (his close friend) - falls
for her without delay.
Sextus
(Sesto), Cornelia’s adolescent son,
sees himself as a true Roman hero,
but when he appears his mother
always has him in tow, and he
eagerly repeats everything she says.
To one of the many proposals of
marriage his mother receives he
answers: “No, we are not marrying.”
The Roman soldiers react as
bawdy soldiers always do, every time
a woman appears in the camp.
The Egyptians are the
personification of the insincerity
and treachery, disorden filth and
sultry desire associated with hot
southern clirnes; yet they show
imagination and a Wealth of feeling.
Cleopatra, youthful ruler
over Egypt together with her brother
Tolomeo, tries, disguised as the girl Lydia, to ensnare
Caesar, the conqueror of her
country, so that she can eliminate
her hated brother and rule alone -
without Caesar and the Romans, of
course. In the end, though, her
plans miscarry -
she falls headlong in love with
Caesar and, faced with the jubilant
crowds of Romans and Egyptians,
enters “eternal union” with him.
Everyone on the stage, Romans and
Egyptians alike, and in the audience
knows that Caesar has a faithful
wife back home
in Rome and that his vows of loyalty
to Cleopatra are lies, so the
closing festivities are nothing if
not ironic.
The whole opera, with its ironically
treated racism, can also be seen as
a kind of travel brochure for one of
the big English oriental trading
companies: Take the boat to Egypt!
It’s a bit dirty there, and not as
cool as home, but you’ll experience
the adventure of the Eastl The
people are full of fantasy,
unpredictable... the climate
sultry... all kinds of excitement
await you! The levelheaded
northerner’s envy of the
Mediterrannean or even tropical way
of life comes to the fore.
Our recording begins with the
overture [1]. This piece, which is
intended to prepare the audience for
the turbulence and colourfulness of
the opera, is dominated by hectic
emotions. The string orchestra
receives reinforcement and
additional colouring from oboes and
bassoons. A relatively rich continuo
group (two harpsichords, lute and
organ) harmonizes and rhythmizes the
basses. The overture normally
consists of three sections: a
festive or fiery opening section, a
fugued allegro and a conclusion
similar in character to the
beginning. Here
Handel unexpectedly brings a choral
minuet [2] instead of the third
section. The victorious Caesar is
greeted by the Egyptians, horns introduce a new
colour (perhaps with Oriental
effect) into the orchestral sound,
the continuo is dominated by the
organ. In abrupt contrast, this
is.followed by Caesar’s first aria [3] -
here, as required in the original,
sung by a high male voice. The aria
is a virtuoso piece of heroic
self-congratulation: he, the
triumphant victor, deserves to be received
with palm branches and the cheers
ofthe people. In
musical terms this aria is still
part of the overture, which thus
enjoys an unconventionally fiery
conclusion.
Cornelia’s sad, desolate aria [4] -
her husband Pompey has been murdered
by the Egyptians - is accompanied by
the string orchestra, organ and lute
as well as a solo flute. - By his father’s
grave, Sesto swears to revenge his
murder: The two parts of his aria
offer an extreme contrast with one
another: in the fast revenge section
he “stokes up” his own courage, as
it were, while the slow section is
composed in the manner of the
“ombra” arias traditional at the
time - accompanied
by ghostly recorders he recalls the
memory of his dead father [6]. -
Sesto’s aria that follows [7] from a
later scene, is an exeptionally
tender piece, accompanied only by a
harpsichord in soft register and a
cello. Sweet hope begins to bud, and
the listener could well think it is
the song of a young lover - but it is the hope
of finding the hated murderer and
killing him. There is bitter irony
of great dramatic effect in this
reversal of feelings and their
traditional musical expression. - Caesar and his
adversary Tolomeo face one another:
each tries to set a trap for the
other, while speaking to him in
tones of honeyed friendliness.
Caesar’s great aria [8] with the
solo horn accompaniment depicts this
situation: a huntsman creeps up on
tiptoe to outwit the game.
This nocturnal piece is a rare example
of a large natural horn solo in the piano,
hence the quiet continuo: organ and
harpsichord with peau de buffle.
- For Cornelia an end to her plight
seems to be in sight; her sigh aria
[9] with strings, organ, lute and
recorder says the exact opposite of
its musical content: there will be an
end to her sighing and lament. It is a
rhetorical game in which the pauses
play a major role as a particularly
effective “figure”.
Cleopatra’s long F
sharp minor aria [10] can be
considered the musical nucleus of the
opera: it is a grandiose lament for
the fate of her lover. Here, all
doubts as to this clever
woman’s honesty are dispelled; here
she is nothing but a woman in love.
The Baroque harp is the special
continuo instrument for Cleopatra,
combined here with the organ.
The war music [11], in which as so
often in the Baroque period the sound
of trumpets is imitated by string and
oboes, signals the Roman victory -
Cleopatra reacts to the news of
Caesar’s rescue and the destruction of
Tolomeo and Achilla with a song of
triumph [12]: this piece, like the
great aria of mourning, shows that the
part of the Egyptian queen is written
for a primadonna assoluta. It
contains the greatest expressive
range, from legatissimo through to
coloratura, and the scale encompassed
stretches from a deep mezzo to high
soprano. - The
arade that leads to the closing
tableau is ushered in by two
instrumental pieces [13]: a
complex one with two subtly set groups
of horns (right and left), and a
simple, brilliant march with timpani
and trumpets. The contrast of “Egyptian”
and “Roman” is obviously intended to
be repeated once more here. - The
final chorus [14] with the duet
between Caesar and Cleopatra in the
central section is a bourée. The
entire opera is thus framed by two
choral dances: a strictly formal
framework for the most luxuriant
subject-matter. Within
the bourée itself we find a similar
structure: the two outer sections form
a fairly strict, festive frame for a
very soft central part whose
sensuality seems genuine, but whose
text - vows of eternal loyalty
- seems ironic in the extreme.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Translations: Clive R. Williams
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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