Handel Uncaged: Cantatas for Alto
- Submitting institution
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University of Newcastle upon Tyne
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 262080-229154-1300
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
- Inventa Records
- Month
- November
- Year
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- How can we reimagine Baroque cantata cycles in modern concert performances as a continuous, uninterrupted whole, particularly when these cantatas were designed for eighteenth-century contexts that demanded fragmented or serial delivery, for example in the weekly conversazione for intimate literary and aristocratic salons or as entr'acte entertainments for larger feasts or celebrations? In Handel Uncaged (Inventa/Resonus Classics, 2019), accompanied by the continuo group of Guillermo Brachetta (harpsichord), Andrew Maginley (archlute) and Jonathan Manson (cello, gamba), Lawrence Zazzo has combined his experience as a professional countertenor performing many of these cantatas with extensive historical research to engage with this performance question by taking these works out of their musical 'cage'. / An invitation to modern performers to be more flexible and creative in their presentation of Handel's chamber works, repositioning them in non-original settings and combinations even while acknowledging original historical compositional contexts, Handel Uncaged is a fusion of reconstruction and reimagination that straddles historical performance research and creative practice. The centrepiece is the world premiere recording of Amore Uccellatore, an unpublished ten-aria solo continuo cantata from Handel's early Italian sojourn (1706-1710) that previously existed only in a secondary manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Using his own new editions of this and other sources, Zazzo has interpolated short works from Handel's solo instrumental repertoire, based on abundant contemporary evidence that continuo players were expected to improvise in pauses as well as ritornelli. The project also includes a serialisation of two beloved alto cantatas, Stanco di piu soffire (HWV167a) and Figli del mesto cor (HWV112) that are normally presented separately in performances, as well as the first recording to correctly present Handel's shortened 'Rome' or 'Ruspoli' version of Udite il mio consiglio (HWV 172).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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