#georg friedrich händel

[rayatii]

So I'm on a Discord server for classical music lovers, and there are a few chatbots for famous composers (yes, I do not support AI all that much, but sometimes these chatbots are just entertaining). And earlier this month, I copy-pasted the following question to every composer bot chat channel on the server:

And here are the responses I got:

Händel:

Bach:

Stravinsky:

Chopin:

Shostakovich:

Beethoven:

Mozart:

Satie:

So I guess in conclusion, all these composers from different eras of classical music are saying that there is more to music than pleasantness/unpleasantness, and that it should be diverse.

[mrbacf]

Giulio Cesare, HWV 17, Act 3: "Da tempeste il legno infranto" (Cleopatra)

[unabashedqueenfury]

Reign 2013-17/02-21

Maria e Francesco

[lrickwig]

GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL Y ANTONIO LUCIO VIVALDI CUMPLEAÑOS ‼️🎉

Quise hacerlos en mi estilo, que tal?

Amo a estos compositores con toda mi vida, hoy también es mi cumpleaños de hecho. 🐟

346 años de Vivaldi ❤️

y 314 de Händel 💜

Amo, amo. 🩷🩷

[akathecentimetre]

Milan and the surrounding countryside, early 18th century. Bertarido, king of Lombardy and Milan, has been attacked and deposed by Grimoaldo, an ally of his estranged brother, Gundeberto. Gundeberto was killed in the battle and Bertarido vanished, leaving his queen, Rodelinda, and a young son, Flavio, in the power of the victorious ally, Grimoaldo. As a reward for defeating Bertarido, Grimoaldo was promised the hand of Bertarido’s sister, Eduige—which would grant him a legitimate claim to the throne at Milan. Eduige and Grimoaldo fell in love, but she would not marry him while mourning two brothers—one dead, one presumed so. From abroad Bertarido has sent word of his own death, intending to return to Milan in disguise, rescue his wife and son, and escape to an anonymous life far from the vagaries of politics and the burden of government. The news of his death has devastated both Rodelinda and Eduige. Grimoaldo, intent on gaining the throne, weighs his options, counseled by two advisers—Garibaldo, his closest aide, and Unulfo, a member of Bertarido’s cabinet who maintains intimate ties with the royal family and is the only person who knows that Bertarido still lives. - MetOpera.org ; full opera synopsis here.

Bonus (for @agarthanguide because it's her quote) :

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

👀

[thedaysofdisorder]

Händel: "Eternal Source of Light Divine" Thomas Dunford, Jupiter, Lea Desandre, Iestyn Davies

[glow-wine]

So I started watching Star Trek: The Original Series. I watched the first three episodes, and then went to see a three-hour opera (Alcina by Händel in a regrettably incoherent production), and now these two things are linked in my brain!!!

I actually think the plot of that opera could easily be a Star Trek episode. It's set on an island where a sorceress (Alcina) is bewitching and seducing the dudes, and turning them into animals, and the protagonist disguises herself as a man to sneak in and rescue her enchanted husband! Cue misunderstadings, mistaken identities, people falling in love, lots of singing. It reminded me of The Tempest and Twelth Night at first, then of the Circe story from the Oddyssey, but also of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The costuming, I think, went for a sort of flamboyantly colourful carneval maximalism VS sad beige mom aesthetic, but I cannot be sure if that was the idea because it did not land at all. I sat there longing for the simplicity and clarity of Star Trek's visuals, the colour-coded costumes, characters who were easy to tell apart! And I mused that THE MAN TRAP (a hilarious title that must be written in all caps at all times) was also sort of about a, shall we say, magical enchantress seducing men (and women), and there were mistaken identity hijinks, and in the end you kind of felt bad for the dead monster? Very opera. Very classic. I cannot say if it was just the staging that made this opera production hard to follow and impossible to vibe with on an emotional level. Maybe there are issues with the source material, the libretto itself? Maybe plot and characters just aren't that good to begin with? But damn, how can you tell, when the directing is a mess? There was always too much going on on stage! Costumes and stage design were confusing! Surely those things should be designed to work intuitively?!

That opera ticket cost more than the TOS blu-ray boxset, by the way!

But it was worth it, I love Baroque music. It is my second-favourite musical genre after power metal. I think it is a privilege to be in the same room as a theorbo.

The music aside, though, Star Trek: TOS really comes out on top! The stories are accessible and mostly fun, somewhat hornier than I expected ... The only problem is that they put a trailer at the start of the first blu-ray, a trailer for one of the reboot Star Trek movies. It looked like an aftershave commercial, Jesus fucking Christ, you know, one of those commercials that try to look like an action movie? It looked like a joke.

[movietonight]

Currently reading a book asking the brave question "what if famous composer Georg Friedrich Händel was gay and spent his time in Rome as a young man cruising"

[doyouknowthisopera]

[mtonino]

...A questo incombente sentimento di morte rimanda in particolar modo la Sarabanda di Haendel, che - derivata dalla prima suite per clavicembalo e riorchestrata da Rosenman - apre il film sui titoli di testa e inesorabilemte lo percorre tutto. Negli studi su Barry Lyndon si è rilevata l'associazione della Sarabanda con i molti duelli che vi ricorrono e in particolare con i due scontri speculari (quello "finto"

con il capitano Quinn e quello "vero" con Lord Bullington) che determinanon il destino del protagonista e che sono correlati tra loro anche dal ricorrere della medesima orchestrazione - un cupo rintocco dei timapni sull'inquieto dei violoncelli e dei contrabbassi. In realtà il tema haendeliano letteralmente "assedia" l'ultima parte di Barry Lyndon, accompagnando implacabile il precipitare del dramma di Redmond Barry verso la perdita del figlio e il successivo disfacimento fisico e psichico fino alla tragica condizione di invalido determinata dal drammatico esito del duello con il figliastro: nella scena in cui il protagonista appare ormai sconfitto a letto con la gamba amputata il tema della Sarabanda ritorna ancora una volta, affidato peraltro al violoncello "solo" secondo uno stilema che - come si è più volte rilevato - è particolarmente caro a Kubrick.

La composizione di Haendel assume in tal modo in Barry Lyndon un ruolo nodale, tanto più rilevante perché - grazie anche a un'orchestrazione che ne amplifica le implicazioni drammatiche - questa musica tipicamente barocca viene sganciata da una precisa funzione storicizzante, come ci dice lo stesso Kubrick quando riconosce che essa non vuol evocare alcuna epoca in particolare.

La centralità della Sarabanda è ribadita dal suo ritornare anche nei titoli finali sulla base di una scelta che è assolutamente inedita nel cinema di Kubrick, sin qui caratterizzato dalla differenziazione tra musiche di "testa" e di "coda": posto agli estremi di Barry Lyndon, il brano haendeliano viene così a "chiudere" il film, smentendone in certo modo la traiettoria lineare e la connotazione "storica" e svelando l'illusorietà della stessa vicenda del protagonista, ricondotta infine il dove era incominciata.

[mrbacf]

G.F. HANDEL - Concerto Grosso Op. 6, nº 8 in C minor HWV 326 -ASMIF-Marr...

[unabashedqueenfury]

Reign 2013-2017

Mary and Francis

[lrickwig]

Händel~~~

[akathecentimetre]

English National Opera, Handel's Rodelinda, 2014 dir. Richard Jones

*wheezes* so uhhhhh does anyone have any video leads on this production?

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

this just in: stéphanie d’oustrac and ying fang are SERVING over at the dutch national opera