Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- A Biographical Note
- Introduction
- 1 Adam
- 2 Alfvén
- 3 Atterberg
- 4 Beethoven
- 5 Bizet
- 6 Borodin
- 7 Brahms
- 8 Donizetti
- 9 Gounod
- 10 Grieg
- 11 Handel
- 12 Leoncavallo
- 13 Mascagni
- 14 Massenet
- 15 Meyerbeer
- 16 Mozart
- 17 Puccini
- 18 Rangström
- 19 Rossini
- 20 Schubert
- 21 Sibelius
- 22 Richard Strauss
- 23 Verdi
- 24 Wagner
- 25 Björling's Remaining Recordings: A Survey of the Best (1920–60)
- 26 Evolution and Influence
- Notes
- Discography
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Handel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- A Biographical Note
- Introduction
- 1 Adam
- 2 Alfvén
- 3 Atterberg
- 4 Beethoven
- 5 Bizet
- 6 Borodin
- 7 Brahms
- 8 Donizetti
- 9 Gounod
- 10 Grieg
- 11 Handel
- 12 Leoncavallo
- 13 Mascagni
- 14 Massenet
- 15 Meyerbeer
- 16 Mozart
- 17 Puccini
- 18 Rangström
- 19 Rossini
- 20 Schubert
- 21 Sibelius
- 22 Richard Strauss
- 23 Verdi
- 24 Wagner
- 25 Björling's Remaining Recordings: A Survey of the Best (1920–60)
- 26 Evolution and Influence
- Notes
- Discography
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Serse
“Ombra mai fu”
August 23, 1949: Los Angeles, Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, cond. Izler Solomon
Standing Room Only SRO 845-1
June 9, 1954: Bergen, Concert Palace
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Carl Garaguly
Bluebell ABCD 006
December 14, 1955: New Orleans, Municipal Auditorium
Frederick Schauwecker, pf.
Premiere Opera 122
April 13, 1959: Atlanta, Glenn Memorial Auditorium
Frederick Schauwecker, pf.
Bluebell ABCD 020
Björling sang Handel's Messiah eight times in the 1930s, but the only Baroque music he ever recorded was this opening scene from the opera Serse (Xerxes), written in the contralto register for the famed castrato Cafarelli. Like most tenors, Björling transposes it up a tone (to G major), and although he offers little in the way of embellishment he sings most expressively, with the words poised on the lips in true bel canto style. This music has at times been transposed to a religious context—some tenors have recorded the Larghetto to the Italian words “O mio Signor”—and understandably so, for the recitative is indeed a sort of prayer and the aria that follows a hymn of praise. The fact that the objects of the prayer and hymn are a plane tree and the shade it projects should not induce us to suspect an ironical perspective, but rather to share Serse's understanding of Nature as a potent manifestation of divinity.
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- Information
- The Bjorling SoundA Recorded Legacy, pp. 85 - 86Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012