Endless pleasure

I was supposed to be getting ready for Christmas today but as almost always happens when I reach for the IPOD the work stops and listening takes over.  Today's choice, as it so often is, was some extracts from Semele.  

I've said before that I came late to baroque music but I've made up for in since and if I was forced at gunpoint to chose only one composer whose music I could listen to for the rest of my life it would be a toss up between Handel and Mozart, with Rameau and Stravinsky coming not far behind.

I'd been aware of the famous bits and pieces of Handel from an early age but I'd never really taken any time to explore his music.  Handel almost passed me by at university.  I remember one lecture on Handel's opera and that was about it - though interesting one of the illustrations which was used - Cleopatra's final aria from Giulo Cesare Da Tempeste - lodged in my mind and was immediately familiar when I first heard music from the opera again after something like 20 years.

I performed very little Handel at University.  In fact I have a very strong memory of one of my lecturers saying that one of his ambitions was to conduct a performance of Saul.  I am ashamed to admit that at the time I found this almost incomprehensible as an ambition when there was so much good music out there.  But the story had a happy ending because years later he did indeed put on a performance and I was invited to play.  By then I knew exactly why he he wanted to conduct it and it was a great pleasure to be able to take part,

 The starting point for my Handelian discovery was a performance of Tamerlano in Leeds.  While I was doing my training with the Inland Revenue I had to stay overnight in Leeds fairly regularly so took to going to see as much of Opera North as I could.  Tamerlano was hugely enjoyable and started to  open my eyes to the sheer range of Handel's invention.  Since then some of my most memorable musical experiences have been with Handel's operas.   Agrippina and Partenope at ENO were two of the very best nights I have spend in the theatre recently (now you see where the title of this blog comes from).  I didn't know anything from Partenope at the time so to hear Io ti levo l'impero dell'armi for the first time was quite overwhelming.  I vividly that feeling that time had almost stood still.

Today however it was Semele.  That one work alone encompasses almost all of Handel's range, from the gravity of the overture, the energy of the final chorus, the energy of the interludes and the mystery of the music for Somnus.   But most of all there is the irresistible Semele herself.  Of all her arias I think I would have to pick Endless Pleasure , which to me is pure joy.  But there is another reason for picking this aria: the chorus which follows it.  You start thinking that it will simply be a choral repetition of what has gone before but Handel develops the music in new directions.  The sheer pleasure in the sound - notice the horns added to the texture - makes it is easy to overlook the craftsmanship, but Handel knew precisely what he was doing with every note.

There was a musicological tradition at one time to denigrate Handel because he didn't write "proper" counterpoint - unlike of course Bach.  There was still a distinct hangover of this view when I was starting my studying.  Now I think that this has gone forever and that, in his own terms, Handel is simply one of the very greatest of all composers.

There is a wonderful performance of Endless Pleasure (apart from one misjudged interpolated high note towards the end) from Carolyn Sampson at the Proms a couple of years ago .  I can't embed it into this post but you can find it at the following link

Endless pleasure

It is an odd though that had I not trained as a tax inspector Handel might have passed me by for another 20 years!