Handel was a significant 'recycler' of music, both his own and others', as shown by the oboe part in Zenobia's cavatina 'Quando mai spietata sorte' from Radamisto, which prefigures Xerxes' arioso.
Album & Artwork
The album's concept of 'stormy arias' was conceived by mezzo-soprano Blandine Staskiewicz during a sleepless, stormy night on Belle-Île-en-Mer, an island off Brittany.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Unlike Vivaldi's external, pictorial tempests, Handel's tempests are more internalized and psychological, as exemplified by the sinfonia of his opera Agrippina.
Compositional Technique
Vivaldi's musical language often creates a 'stormy emotion' through syncopated rhythms, dizzying scales, repeated notes, rapid arpeggios, and abrupt leaps in register.
Compositional Technique
The aria di tempesta, a popular type of aria in Baroque opera, depicts a character in conflict, anger, or despair, often using storm imagery in the text.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The album Tempesta aims to illustrate the emotional journey of love, alternating quick and slow arias to depict the storm's arrival, the storm itself, and the return to calm.
Composer Biography
Contemporaries described Vivaldi's music as 'wild and irregular' and him as 'an old man who possesses a prodigious fury for composing,' suggesting a 'tempestuous' element to his personality.
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