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Reviewer: Jerry
Dubins L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (hereinafter, L’Allegro, for short) is one of Handel’s most endearing choral works, yet it’s difficult to classify because it doesn’t quite fit the template of the composer’s biblically based oratorios, and, as Bertil van Boer points out in his 37:4 review of Peter Neuman’s Carus recording of L’Allegro, Handel himself was at a loss as to what to call it. No doubt the tradition of the English ode, which reached its state of the art in the works of Henry Purcell and John Blow, was well-known to Handel and played a major role in this new hybrid form he was fashioning—part oratorio, part ode. Today, L’Allegro is as often designated a “pastoral ode” as it is an oratorio and again, as Bertil points out, the composer was quick to follow up with at least two more works in a similar genre, the Ode to St. Cecilia’s Day and Alexander’s Feast. I would submit that the Occasional Oratorio and the late English-language version of The Triumph of Truth and Time also fall into the same category. The year 1740 augured bad times ahead for the composer who had, up until then, earned fame and fortune on the stages of London’s opera houses. It wasn’t a single factor that contributed to the demise of Italian opera in England. Financial difficulties were forcing theaters to close and, increasingly, audiences were being drawn to more popular forms of native English entertainments, such as The Beggar’s Opera. A segment of English society never liked Italian opera anyway, seeing it as an offense to both Anglican proprieties and native pride. With the beast now wounded, a coalition of the pious and the cultural purists saw their opportunity to finish it off. Handel, who was nothing if not a shrewd businessman, realized that opera wasn’t coming back; so, in a smart move, he didn’t reinvent himself, but he did rededicate himself to a genre that had already brought him considerable success in the 1730s, the biblical oratorio. By 1740, before he turned to John Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso for his oratorio/ode, Handel already had under his belt the oratorios Esther (1732), Deborah (1733), Athalia (1733), Saul (1739), and Israel in Egypt (1739), so the form wasn’t new. But if that’s what the English wanted, then going forward that’s what Handel would give them, even if it meant pulling the wool over their ears by recasting material from his operas and Italian arias; and indeed, his blockbuster oratorio to end all oratorios, Messiah, which came in 1741–1742, was not immune to such borrowings. So, 1740, the year of L’Allegro, was a turning point in Handel’s career. With the exception of just two more operas, Imeno in 1740 and Deidamia in 1741, in the realm of choral music, Handel would focus almost entirely on oratorio after that critical juncture. The text of L’Allegro, as noted above, is based on two separate poems by John Milton, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso (c. 1632), prequels, if you will, to Schumann’s Florestan and Eusebius. The first poem represents the extrovert—the cheerful, happy, sanguine man; the second poem represents the introvert—the serious, sober, somber man. Rather than treat each poem as an individual entity, however, Charles Jennens, Handel’s librettist, merged the two poems into one by alternating the verses. Rumor has it that Jennens wasn’t the brightest candle in the chandelier, so my guess is that he needed it explained to him that the libretto had to provide for musical contrast between the L’Allegro and Il Penseroso personalities, and that Handel was probably the one who came up with the idea. Scholarly sources suggest that it was another hand—that of Handel’s friend James Harris—who actually interleaved the two poems. A third section, however, titled “Il Moderato,” was added in Jennens’s own words, moralizing that the life well lived is a life of moderation that sublimates the extrovert and the introvert into one, thus accounting for the full title of Handel’s oratorio/ode, L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato. When it came to orchestrating the work, Handel spared no expense, scoring it for oboes, bassoons, and trumpets in pairs, flute, horn, timpani, strings, organ ad libitum, and carillon. Handel wrote no formal overture to L’Allegro; but in an ad printed in the London Daily Post announcing the first performance for February 27, 1740, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Handel promised “two new CONCERTO’s for several Instruments, And a NEW CONCERTO on the Organ.” Unfortunately, no records exist documenting which concertos were heard at the event, but Paul McCreesh has chosen ones based on their keys corresponding to the vocal movements they precede. Thus, we get the Concerto Grosso in G Major, op. 6/1, as introduction to Part I; the Concerto Grosso No. 3 in E Minor, op. 6/3, as introduction to Part II; and the Organ Concerto in B♭ Major, op. 7/1, as introduction to Part III. Musically, McCreesh’s choices make sense, though Handel’s concertos are so invigorating I suspect we wouldn’t have objected to others being used in their stead. Album note authors Christopher Suckling and William Whitehead, in their informative booklet essay and analysis, do raise a serious question about the B♭-Major Organ Concerto, noting, as have others, that the organ score “contains a significant pedal part, unique amongst Handel’s organ works. This last would not in itself be problematic but for the fact that British organs of the day generally lacked pedals and the pipes to go with them. What instrument did Handel play, then, in the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in February 1740?” “Could it have been,” the authors wonder, “that Handel’s German pedal prowess and an innately inventive streak prompted him to rig up an instrument specially for the occasion? Certainly the virtuoso pedal part in op. 7/1, played out literally before their eyes, would have been a wow to the audience in Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre, unused to such podal exertions.” I don’t know what would have been involved in “rigging up” an instrument in this way—we’re talking here about a pipe organ—but surely I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t have required considerable time and mechanical engineering skill. It seems rather improbable to me that conducting rehearsals and putting last-minute touches to the score Handel would have had the time or inclination to get out his Craftsman’s Toolkit and get his wig dirty messing around with the organ’s pedals and pipes. A more probable answer is that either it wasn’t the op. 7/1 Concerto that Handel gave at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields performance, or, if it was, Handel made do without the virtuoso pedal part, leaving that for future performances on organs suited to it. According to the album note, this is the first recording to present Handel’s original version of L’Allegro as it was premiered on February 27, 1740 at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. I’m not sure exactly what that means, since, as already noted, we don’t know which concertos Handel used for the performance, but we do know that Handel made a number of modifications and adjustments to the score—probably in response to hearing things he didn’t like during rehearsals—between the time the score was “prematurely” published by Walsh and the time the first performance took place. The discrepancies are noted in the booklet. No one alive today, of course, was there, and there is no recording of the event, so a term like “original version,” when dealing with a work such as this, needs to be taken on faith. Just a quick comparison between the lineup of solo singers employed by John Eliot Gardiner—whose HIP credentials no one would question—and McCreesh’s solo cast illustrates just how differently two specialists in Baroque music can approach the same work. Gardiner uses no fewer than seven solo singers—four sopranos (one of whom, Michael Ginn, was a boy treble when Gardiner’s 1980 Erato recording was made), two tenors, and a bass. McCreesh makes do with five solo vocalists—two sopranos (one of whom, Laurence Kilsby, is another boy treble), a tenor, a baritone, and a bass. Obviously, with Gardiner’s seven soloists, the vocal numbers are spread among more singers than they are among McCreesh’s five. Unfortunately, Gardiner’s is the only other version I have for comparison, but I can tell you right off the bat that between the two McCreesh’s new version strikes me as the more authentic, if for no other reason than that it includes the three concertos, which Gardiner’s doesn’t. We know from the above-cited advert in the London Daily Post, that Handel included three concertos in the performance. What we don’t know are two things: (1) which specific concertos they were, and (2) whether they were played as “overtures” to each of the work’s sections, or whether they were played during intermissions between sections, a common practice in performances of Handel’s oratorios. Nonetheless, we have them in this new recording. On this subject, I would direct you to David Johnson’s review of the Gardiner version in 11:2. Despite the notice advertising the three new concertos, Johnson states, “Handel made several changes in L’Allegro to suit later singers, but he never added an overture; obviously he wanted that stark opening, with divided cellos and bassoons, and that is precisely what we get in the Erato recording.” Perhaps he’s right and the concertos were played as entr’actes, but obviously McCreesh believes otherwise. Admittedly, Gardiner’s cast of solo singers is bit more star-studded with names such as Patrizia Kwella, Martyn Hill, and Stephen Varcoe, but in this particular work, which has about it a certain Arcadian artlessness to it, McCreesh’s vocalists strike me as less arch and more direct. Laurence Kilsby is more secure and less hooty-sounding in his treble arias, “Come, thou goddess, fair and free” and the first occurrence of “Mirth, admit me of thy crew,” than Michael Ginn sounds in his arias for Gardiner; and soprano Gillian Webster and flutist Katy Bircher in the current recording chirp and trill their way like birds of a feather through the work’s major set piece, the avian “Sweet bird, that shuns’t the noise of folly.” Jeremy Ovenden, Peter Harvey, and Ashley Riches are also equally well cast in their parts. There’s not a weak voice among the soloists, and the Gabrieli Consort performs admirably when called upon to do so, which, admittedly, in this score isn’t often. This is not an oratorio, like others by Handel, which contains big, thrilling, stand-alone choruses. This brings me finally to the orchestra, the Gabrieli Players, and here’s where I have a preference for Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being period instrument ensembles that sound closest to their modern instrument counterparts, and 1 being those that sound like they’re playing on, well, period instruments, I’d give Gardiner about an eight and McCreesh about a five or a six. McCreesh’s horn player is a bit wobbly and the string tone is whinier than I care for, with a bit too much scooping and swooping of phrases. I’m not saying that the Gabrieli Players are lacking in technique, coordination, or musical spirit; it’s just that I prefer the more polished sound of Gardiner’s band, but it may come down to a matter of taste. McCreesh’s recording comes with a thick 88-page booklet, containing articulate essays, artist photos, complete texts keyed to the tracks, and a complete roster of the orchestra’s players, but not of the chorus members. Even if you already have the Gardiner L’Allegro, or another version you’re happy with, I think this one has enough going for it that it’s worth the investment. | |
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