Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert - George Frideric Handel: Ode for St Cecilia's Day (1986)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 218 Mb | Total time: 50:28 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | 419 220-2 | Recorded: 1985
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 218 Mb | Total time: 50:28 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | 419 220-2 | Recorded: 1985
Verses in praise of music for St Cecilia's Day were fashionable in the seventeenth century but in poetic inspiration none equalled Dryden's two poems in which he attempts to imitate the effects of music in language. He wrote this one, his Song for St Cecilia's Day, in 1687; it was set to music during the poet's lifetime but not, of course, by Handel whose setting dates from 1739… The highlight of Handel's score for me is, without question, his hauntingly beautiful setting of Dryden's second stanza, ''What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!''. Here, especially, Handel matches a text which Dr Johnson regarded as exhibiting the highest flights of fancy with a tenderly expressive cello obbligato.