Galatea

Though many know it only in a later arrangement for soloists and choruses, Handel wrote this masque for five singers with a small orchestra. Despite the ending (the giant Polyphemus crushes Acis with a rock), the music suggests springtime and young love. There's humor, too: Polyphemus–so big, so dumb, so pleased with himself– is a comic baritone's dream. George doesn't capture all of the role's humor, but he is vocally well-cast. McFadden sometimes pushes her voice into a wobble, but her Galatea is appealing and sweetly sung. Best are Covey-Crump's graceful Damon (the voice of reason) and Ainsley's youthful, high-spirited Acis. (Ainsley also sings the slight but attractive "Look down.") The ensemble numbers are delightful, and Robert King brings the entire thing off splendidly.

This recording of Handel's Acis and Galatea (or Acis und Galatea) features the German translation and arrangement completed by Mozart in Vienna circa 1788, per the instructions of the Baron Gottfried von Swieten to "modernize" Handel's pieces - including Alexander's Feast, Messiah, Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, and Acis and Galatea. Mozart kept much of Handel's original string arrangements, but proceeded to layer harmonies with a degree of sophistication that Handel could only have dreamed of (quoting the author, Roger Hamilton, in the very informative enclosed booklet with the libretto).

Famed for its interpretations of some of Handels most loved works, The Sixteen marks the start of its 40th anniversary season by releasing its first new Handel recording in five years. Handels pastoral opera is a tale of love, tragedy and liberation. The libretto by John Gay, based on Ovids Metamorphoses (book XIII), tells of the eternal love between the mortal shepherd Acis and goddess Galatea and how it is doomed by the jealous cyclops Polyphemus. Handels music beautifully demonstrates the pain and love in such beautiful, dramatic choruses as Wretched lovers! and the grief felt by Galatea in Must I my Acis still bemoan. Staying true to the premiere in 1718, just five singers and nine instrumentalists feature on this intimate recording.

From his great oratorios we know Handel as a master of epic grandeur and dramatic majesty. The pastoral masque Acis and Galatea (1718) shows another side to the composer, one of transparent lightness, refined sensuality, and tenderness. Yet whatever the means he employs to his ends, we are ever awed and elated by the unshakable generosity of this great European musician. A brilliant cast of singers and the award-winning Boréades ensemble team up in this fresh look at an early Handel masterwork.

It is not always easy to avoid writing a shade smugly about the arrangements Mozart made of choral works by Handel. Nowadays, increasingly, we try to listen to such works as Acis and Galatea and the Cecilian Ode in the form in which Handel composed them; to hear them through the prism of the classical musical consciousness is disconcerting. For once we feel that we know better than Mozart. Well, so we do, about Handel and the way he makes the best effect (at least on us); but a different kind of historical awareness is needed here, one that puts us into the frame of mind of late eighteenth-century Vienna and its perception of Handel.

The award-winning Early Opera Company under the direction of founder Christian Curnyn celebrates the 300th anniversary of the premiere of one of Handel’s most sublime creations: Acis and Galatea. This unique interpretation is performed as Handel himself specified in the manuscript: supported by fourteen period instruments, the outstanding cast of singers takes on the solo parts as well as the magnificent choruses. This is Handel writing at his highest levels of intimacy and intensity; the music superbly supports the libretto's evocative portrayal of the story, simultaneously restrained, economical, and deeply moving.

Acis and Galatea (HWV 49) was originally a masque composed by George Frideric Händel. He first composed this piece while he was living at Cannons (the seat of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos) during the summer of 1718. It is set to a libretto by John Gay, Alexander Pope, and John Hughes, who borrowed freely from John Dryden's English translation of Ovid published in 1717, The Story of Acis, Polyphemus and Galatea...

The delectable masque Acis and Galatea , which Handel wrote in 1718 while composer-in-residence to the Earl of Carnarvon (usually referred to in Handel literature by his later title, Duke of Chandos), has a substantial recorded history. In addition to this recording, there are 11 others listed at ArkivMusic, most of which have something to offer, and several have their champions among Fanfare ’s critics.

The young Felix Mendelssohn's acquaintance with Acis and Galatea was due to Carl Friedrich Zelter, his composition teacher and conductor of the Berlin Singakademie. In 1828 Zelter asked Mendelssohn, by then a student at Berlin's university, to produce rescored versions of both Acis and Galatea and the Dettingen Te Deum for the use of the Singakademie. According to Fanny these orchestrations were a quid pro quo for obtaining Zelter's blessing on Felix's proposed revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and securing the cooperation of the Singakademie in the venture, which came to fruition on 11 March 1829.

World premiere recording to mark the commemorative year 2009: Acis and Galatea was one of the most successful of Handel’s works during his lifetime. Following his death it also served as a model for several arrangements by prominent composers, including Mozart. That Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy concerned himself intensively with the work had been known for a long time, however only the parts had survived.