Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Amadeus
Pages: 192
Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-57467-487-3 • Paperback /CD-Audio • April 2019 • $37.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-5381-3462-7 • eBook • April 2019 • $35.00 • (£30.00)
David Hurwitz, a music critic, author, and percussionist, is the founder and executive editor of Classicstoday.com, the Internet’s first classical music review magazine. His many books include Unlocking the Masters titles on Richard Strauss, Mozart, Mahler, Sibelius, Haydn, Dvorák, Shostakovich, and Bernstein. Hurwitz’s other writings include works on Beethoven and Brahms, and his articles have appeared in Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Music and Letters, Early Music America, and other scholarly periodicals. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Introduction: Listening to the Mysterious Mr. Handel
Chapter 1: The Curse of The Harmonious Blacksmith: (Too?) Popular Favorites
The Harmonious Blacksmith (1720)
Largo from Xerxes (Serse) (1738)
Water Music (1717) and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749)
Zadok the Priest (1727)
Messiah (1741)
Chapter 2: It’s Saul Good: Exploring the English Oratorios and Associated Instrumental Works
Blood and Guts
The Waratorios
Pastoral Fantasies
Choral Characterization
Two English Operas
The New Testament
What To Do During Intermission (Concertos and Orchestral Music)
Chapter 3: A Pair of Acis: Same Story, Different Music
Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (Serenata or Dramatic Cantata) 1708
Acis and Galatea (Variously called a Masque, Serenata, Oratorio, Pastoral Opera, Little Opera, etc) 1718
Chapter 4: Sex and Drugs and Da Capo Arias: The Operas
The Handel Opera Revival: How It Really Happened
Ariodante: Handel’s Operatic Paradigm
A Dozen Great Handel Operas (excluding Ariodante)
Aria Recitals and Collections
Chapter 5: Channeling Cleopatra: Musical Characterization
Chapter 6: A Lotta Cantatas and Serenatas: Early Italian Pieces, Sacred Music, and English Ceremonial Works
Early Italian Instrumental Cantatas and Serenatas
Sacred Music
Ceremonial Music
Chapter 7: Secondhand Handel: Borrowing and Musical Morality
Track 1. “Eternal source of light divine” (Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne)
Track 2. “Dominus a dextris tuis” (Dixit Dominus)
Track 3. “Disserratevi, o porte d’Averno” (La Resurrezione)
Track 4. “Ogni vento” (Agrippina)
Track 5. “Ombra mai fù” (Serse)
Track 6. “Se tanto piace al cor” (Ariodante)
Track 7. Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 1
Track 8. “Fammi combattere” (Orlando)
Track 10. “Lascia ch’io pianga” (Rinaldo)
Track 11. “Sibilar l’angui d’Aletto” (Aci, Galatea e Polifemo)
Track 14. “Rejoice, O Judah! Hallelujah! Amen” (Judas Maccabaeus)