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Handel in Italy Vol. 1
Georg Friedrich Händel

London Early Opera

Handel in Italy Vol. 1

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212042328
Catnr: SIGCD 423
Release date: 22 January 2016
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Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212042328
Catalogue number
SIGCD 423
Release date
22 January 2016

""All three of them have added something excellent to the album.""

Klassiek Centraal, 25-10-2016
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
Press
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NL

About the album

London Early Opera (LEO) have recorded a unique program of Handel’s Italian-inspired works, devised by harpsichordist, conductor, early music specialist and director Bridget Cunningham and featuring a unique family collaboration from world-renowned soprano sisters Sophie and Mary Bevan alongside their uncle, bass Benjamin Bevan. LEO are leading exponents of baroque research as they work closely with musicologists, historians, editors and researchers, interestingly linking dramatic music and singing with narration and art history for their concert performances.
De voortreffelijkste vocale muziek uit Händels Italiaanse jaren
Händels drie jaar durende reis door Italië was een periode van rijke en intense muzikale activiteit, waarin zijn muziek grondige veranderingen onderging, die hebben bijgedragen aan een carrière met een ongeëvenaarde soepelheid en lange levensduur. Voor het begrip van Händels latere successen is het dan ook van belang om deze vruchtbare Italiaanse periode in beschouwing te nemen, die niet alleen opera’s en instrumentale werken opleverde, maar ook wereldlijke cantates.

Dit album verkent de Italiaanse jaren van de jonge Händel door een waardering van zijn diversiteit aan muzikale stijlen: cantates, geestelijke composities, operateske werken en instrumentale werken. Het programma verkent belangrijke werken uit deze periode in Händels leven, waaronder werken die muzikale inspiratie bevatten die moderne luisteraars zullen herkennen van latere wedergeboortes in operateske aria’s of prachtige melodische lijnen van inmiddels bekende oratoriumfavorieten.

Het album geeft een voorbeeld van de meest voortreffelijke vocale muziek die Händel in Italië componeerde en brengt hierdoor voor de eerste keer de internationaal gewaardeerde solisten Sophie Bevan, Mary Bevan en Benjamin Bevan bij elkaar.

Artist(s)

London Early Opera

London Early Opera are leading exponents of baroque research as they work closely with musicologists, historians, editors and researchers finding new interesting programmes, unrecorded music which feature detailed historical performance practice. LEO link dramatic music and singing with narration and art history to create magical performances in their oratorio and concert performances. They have recently recorded discs of Handel at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and Handel in Italy with multi Grammy winning producer Chris Alder and singers Sophie, Mary and Ben Bevan, Eleanor Dennis, Greg Tassell, Kirsty Hopkins, Claire Bessent, Charles MacDougal. The group is directed by harpsichordist, conductor and early music specialist Bridget Cunningham and they have performed to acclaim at several major venues including Southwark Cathedral, Grosvenor Chapel and St James’ Church, Piccadilly and across France. London...
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London Early Opera are leading exponents of baroque research as they work closely with musicologists, historians, editors and researchers finding new interesting programmes, unrecorded music which feature detailed historical performance practice.

LEO link dramatic music and singing with narration and art history to create magical performances in their oratorio and concert performances.

They have recently recorded discs of Handel at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and Handel in Italy with multi Grammy winning producer Chris Alder and singers Sophie, Mary and Ben Bevan, Eleanor Dennis, Greg Tassell, Kirsty Hopkins, Claire Bessent, Charles MacDougal.

The group is directed by harpsichordist, conductor and early music specialist Bridget Cunningham and they have performed to acclaim at several major venues including Southwark Cathedral, Grosvenor Chapel and St James’ Church, Piccadilly and across France.

London Early Opera offers concerts, operas, educational workshops, lecture recitals and recordings and collaborate on other projects such as their recent recording of George Butterworth.


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Bridget Cunningham (conductor)

Bridget Cunningham is a prizewinning harpsichordist, musicologist and an international, versatile conductor who trained at the Royal College of Music where she was awarded a Fellowship. This celebratory recording is part of an important larger series of her albums with Signum Classics – many of which include world premiere recordings. As Artistic Director of London Early Opera, Cunningham is a leading exponent of baroque music and created these outstanding recordings with many international singers such as Sophie Bevan, Lucy Crowe and Mary Bevan, baroque musicians and historians. Albums include Handel’s Eight Great Harpsichord Suites, Handel in Italy, Caio Fabbricio HWV A9 , Handel at Vauxhall, Handel in Ireland and Handel’s Queens which have been reviewed with international acclaim and shortlisted for a Gramophone Award nomination in 2020; “Handel has never sounded better” (Handel’s Queens) ★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine, 2019 “Bridget Cunningham is just such a player... Her feeling for dance rhythms is infectious...
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Bridget Cunningham is a prizewinning harpsichordist, musicologist and an international, versatile conductor who trained at the Royal College of Music where she was awarded a Fellowship.
This celebratory recording is part of an important larger series of her albums with Signum Classics – many of which include world premiere recordings.
As Artistic Director of London Early Opera, Cunningham is a leading exponent of baroque music and created these outstanding recordings with many international singers such as Sophie Bevan, Lucy Crowe and Mary Bevan, baroque musicians and historians. Albums include Handel’s Eight Great Harpsichord Suites, Handel in Italy, Caio Fabbricio HWV A9 , Handel at Vauxhall, Handel in Ireland and Handel’s Queens which have been reviewed with international acclaim and shortlisted for a Gramophone Award nomination in 2020; “Handel has never sounded better” (Handel’s Queens) ★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine, 2019 “Bridget Cunningham is just such a player... Her feeling for dance rhythms is infectious and her ability to entertain unassailable” (Handel’s Eight Great Harpsichord Suites) ★★★★★ 5 stars BBC Music Magazine, 2022 Cunningham’s harpsichord performances include playing at the London Handel Festival, Maison Hine Cognac, Victoria International Festival, Gozo as well as for the Royal family at Buckingham Palace. She has performed at the Innsbruck Festival, Yale University, St John’s Smith Square, Teatro Petruzzelli Bari, Handel Hendrix Museum, St George’s Hanover Square, the Foundling Museum and St Martin-in-the-Fields. She regularly collaborates with baroque dance groups and has a passion for combining the artworld with music. Cunningham is a keen advocate for directing baroque music from the harpsichord. As well as her numerous performances including several of Handel’s operas, Bach’s Easter Oratorio, Vivaldi’s Gloria and a 400th anniversary performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers at Southwark Cathedral, she has also directed a world premiere for BBC Radio 4 with London Early Opera written by a BBC Inspire Young Composer of the Year, Grace Evangeline- Mason, for the 300th Anniversary of Handel’s Water Music.
She has appeared on several BBC Radio and TV broadcasts including BBC Radio 3 In Tune, BBC 2 Messiah, BBC 4 Vivaldi’s Women, Radio 4 Front Row and SkyArts, RTE, RTP and Radio Stephansdom.


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Mary Bevan (vocals)

Mary Bevan (soprano) read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Trinity College, Cambridge, before training at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She became an Associate Artist of Classical Opera in 2010, and is a winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist award and the UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent in Music. Her opera roles include Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Despina (Così fan tutte), Papagena (The Magic Flute), Yum-Yum (The Mikado), Second Niece (Peter Grimes) and Rebecca (in the world première of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys) for English National Opera, where she is a Harewood Artist, Gerechtigkeit (Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots), Tamiri (Il re pastore), Servilia (La clemenza di Tito) and Emma (Thomas Arne’s Alfred)...
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Mary Bevan (soprano) read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Trinity College, Cambridge, before training at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She became an Associate Artist of Classical Opera in 2010, and is a winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist award and the UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent in Music.

Her opera roles include Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Despina (Così fan tutte), Papagena (The Magic Flute), Yum-Yum (The Mikado), Second Niece (Peter Grimes) and Rebecca (in the world première of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys) for English National Opera, where she is a Harewood Artist, Gerechtigkeit (Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots), Tamiri (Il re pastore), Servilia (La clemenza di Tito) and Emma (Thomas Arne’s Alfred) for Classical Opera, Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Garsington Opera, Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) for The English Concert, and – for The Royal Opera – Music/ Euridice (Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo) at the Roundhouse and the title role in Luigi Rossi’s Orpheus at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Her extensive concert engagements have included Bellezza (Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno) with the Dunedin Consort, a Handel residency with Emanuelle Haïm at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Handel’s Messiah with The English Concert and the English Chamber Orchestra, and she has appeared at the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival, Spitalfields Festival and Oxford Lieder Festival. Her recordings include ‘Handel in Italy’ with London Early Opera for Signum Classics, Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth and Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day with Ludus Baroque for Delphian Records, and Ludwig Thuille songs with Joseph Middleton and Mendelssohn songs with Malcolm Martineau, both for Champs Hill Records.


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Sophie Bevan (vocals)

The recipient of the Young Singer award at the inaugural 2013 International Opera Awards. Sophie Bevan is now at the forefront of the new generation of young British singers.  A graduate of the Benjamin Britten International Opera School, she was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl Award. Her concert repertoire ranges from Handel to James Macmillan and she has worked with conductors that include Sir Antonio Pappano, Edward Gardner, Laurence Cummings, Harry Bicket, Sir Neville Marriner, Phillipe Herreweghe, Sir Mark Elder, Ryan Wigglesworth, Daniel Harding and Sir Charles Mackerras.   Already highly accomplished on the operatic stage, her engagements include her first Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier for English National Opera; the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Welsh National Opera; her first Susana Le Nozze di...
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The recipient of the Young Singer award at the inaugural 2013 International Opera Awards. Sophie Bevan is now at the forefront of the new generation of young British singers. A graduate of the Benjamin Britten International Opera School, she was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl Award. Her concert repertoire ranges from Handel to James Macmillan and she has worked with conductors that include Sir Antonio Pappano, Edward Gardner, Laurence Cummings, Harry Bicket, Sir Neville Marriner, Phillipe Herreweghe, Sir Mark Elder, Ryan Wigglesworth, Daniel Harding and Sir Charles Mackerras. Already highly accomplished on the operatic stage, her engagements include her first Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier for English National Opera; the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Welsh National Opera; her first Susana Le Nozze di Figaro for Garsington Opera; Michal Saul for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Waldvogel Siegfried, Pamina and Ilia for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Susana and Antigone Oedipe at Covent Garden; concerts with the Sao Paulo State Symphony, CBSO, and recitals at the Wigmore Hall; Pamina for the Teatro Real, Madrid; her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Beatrice in the world première of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel; Engagements this season and beyond include concerts with the Bayerische Rundfunk, Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Hallé and the CBSO. She will return to Covent Garden as Sophie in a new production of Der Rosenkavalier and as Beatriz in The Exterminating Angel. She will also create the role of Hermione in the world premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s A Winter’s Tale for ENO and will sing Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Aldeburgh Music. Further future engagements include a return to Teatro Real, Madrid and her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Sophie is also the recipient of the 2010 Critics' Circle award for Exceptional Young Talent, The Times Breakthrough Award at the 2012 South Bank Sky Arts Awards and the Young Singer award at the 2013 inaugural International Opera Awards.

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Composer(s)

Georg Friedrich Händel

Georg Frideric Handel was a composer from the Baroque period. Handel wrote primarily music-dramatic works: 42 operas, 29 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, which comes to a total amount of almost 2000 arias! Furthermore, he composed English, Italian and Latin sacred music, serenades and odes. Among his instrumental music are several organ concertos, concerti grossi, overtures, oboe sonatas and violinsonates, along with many solo works for harpsichord and organ.  Together with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in the same year (1685), Handel is viewed as one of the greatest composers of his time. He was extremely prolific and wrote in total more than 610 works, many of which are still performed today.  Compared to his contemporaries Bach, Telemann...
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Georg Frideric Handel was a composer from the Baroque period. Handel wrote primarily music-dramatic works: 42 operas, 29 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, which comes to a total amount of almost 2000 arias! Furthermore, he composed English, Italian and Latin sacred music, serenades and odes. Among his instrumental music are several organ concertos, concerti grossi, overtures, oboe sonatas and violinsonates, along with many solo works for harpsichord and organ.

Together with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in the same year (1685), Handel is viewed as one of the greatest composers of his time. He was extremely prolific and wrote in total more than 610 works, many of which are still performed today.

Compared to his contemporaries Bach, Telemann and Scarlatti, Handel was by far the most cosmopolitan. When Handel was a child, his father, who was a surgeon at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, imagined a juridical career for him. But his musical talents did not go unnoticed at the court, which forced the father to let him study music. In Hamburg, Handel befriended Mattheson. Together they visited Buxtehude, the greatest organ player of his time, in 1703 (two years before Bach did). At that time, Handel was already an excellent musician, but it wasn't until his stay in Italy - the land of opera - that his talents and skills truly started to flourish. Back in Germany, he received a position at the court of Hannover, where the noblemen had a connection to the British throne. Thanks to these connections, Handel decided to move to London, after which a puzzling history of intrigues and political games started. For example, it is unclear what the exact political message of his famous Water Music is, which was composed for a boat ride on the river Thames by King George. Initially, Handel focused on Italian opera during his stay in London, but from the 1730s onwards he started composing English spoken oratorios, with the celebrated Messiah at its peak.


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Press

"All three of them have added something excellent to the album."
Klassiek Centraal, 25-10-2016

Play album Play album
01.
Gloria, HWV deest: Gloria in excelsis Deo
02:19
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
02.
Gloria, HWV deest: Et in terra pax
02:49
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
03.
Gloria, HWV deest: Laudamus te
02:11
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
04.
Gloria, HWV deest: Domine Deus, Rex coelestis
01:24
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
05.
Gloria, HWV deest: Qui tollis peccata mundi
04:08
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
06.
Gloria, HWV deest: Quoniam tu solus sanctus
03:04
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
07.
Passacaille from the Overture to Rodrigo, HWV 5
04:21
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
08.
Bel Piacere from Agrippina, Act III, Scene 10, HWV 6
02:08
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
09.
Sonata for a Harpsichord with Double Keys in G major, HWV 579
05:14
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
10.
Un pensiero nemico di pace from Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Part 1, HWV 46a
04:22
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
11.
Cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo, HWV 98: Accompagnato: Cuopre tal volta il cielo
01:19
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
12.
Cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo, HWV 98: Aria: Tuona, balena, sibila il vento
03:01
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan
13.
Cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo, HWV 98: Recitativo: Cosi fiera procella
01:03
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
14.
Cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo, HWV 98: Aria: Per pietà
05:37
(Georg Friedrich Händel) Benjamin Bevan, Mary Bevan
show all tracks

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