Philharmonia Baroque, Nicholas Mcgegan

This suite of dances from Dardanus and Platée is an ideal introduction to Rameau. Though his operas are full of articulate use of language and are, in their own polite way, theatrically charged, French baroque opera required periodic dance interludes, which is what is included here. Unlike 19th-century French opera, the dance music in these 18th-century works is often among the most fascinating in the entire opera, full of rich, unorthodox scoring and so packed with ideas underneath the mellifluous exterior that each interlude often seems like a miniature concerto for orchestra.

By the eighteenth century, Palermo-born Alessandro Scarlatti was the most widely performed Italian composer of vocal music having written more than sixty operas and well over a hundred cantatas. The cantata, more concentrated than opera, was considered at that time as the higher artistic form. Scarlatti was extremely prolific and many of his works including cantatas still remain unrecorded.

George Frideric Handel - Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan - Theodora HWV 68 (Repost)
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC+ART: 1,4 GB | MP3 CBR 320: 420 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info + rev-Part
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi HMU 907060.62 | Country/Year: Europe 1992 | Genre: Classical | Style: Oratorio

Theodora (HWV 68) is an oratorio in three acts by George Frideric Handel, set to an English libretto by Thomas Morell. The oratorio concerns the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus. Handel wrote Theodora during his last period of composition, his Indian summer. He was sixty-four years old when he began working on it in June 1749. He had written the oratorios Solomon and Susanna the previous year. Theodora would be his second-to-last oratorio…

Baroque Masterpieces - collection of Baroque music in the best performance in the company Sony BMG DHM Artenova. One of the best collections of Baroque music! The greatest works - the legendary performance! Baroque music is a style of European classical music in the period from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque era follows the Renaissance and the Classical period precedes. The main in this music was an expression of emotions. Baroque music - this violence and ecstasy, in contrast to the confidence and independence of the Renaissance.

Joseph Kerman was a leading musicologist, music critic, and music educator from the 1950s to the 2000s. He reshaped our understanding and appreciation of Western classical music with his first book, Opera as Drama (1956), to his last, Opera and the Morbidity of Music (2008), including his studies on Bach, Beethoven, William Byrd, concertos, and more. He was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he served two terms as chair of the Music Department. He wrote Listen together with his wife, Vivian Kerman.

This bargain-priced box set is a must-have for anyone who loves Handel's operas. Whilst Nicholas McGegan has had his critics over some of his Goettingen recordings, it cannot be denied that he has rescued some of Handel's finest arias and operas from the dustbin of History...