Gemma Bertagnolli Ensemble Cordia - i

Händel, Veracini,
Vivaldi, Hasse
Gemma Bertagnolli
Soprano
Ensemble Cordia
Stefano Veggetti
Passionate Baroque Arias
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Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783)
Astarto
Sinfonia, Allegro
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
2
3
Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno HWV 46a
Una schiera di piaceri Watermusic HWV 348 Suite in F Major
Minuetto
Francesco Maria Veracini (1685-1768)
4 Adriano in Siria
Quel cor che mi donasti
World premiere recording 5
2’49
3’29
2’12
5’46
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
Watermusic HWV 348 Suite in F Major
(....)
2’11
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
6 L’Olimpiade RV 728 Lo seguitai felice Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
7 Concerto Grosso Op. 6 Nr. 6 HWV 324
Affettuoso, Allegro ma non troppo Davide Monti, Elisa Imbalzano, Violin - Franziska Romaner, Violoncello
2
5’30
4’25
8
9
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
Concerto grosso Op. 3 N. 2 HWV 313
Andante
Konrad Zeller, Oboe
Arianna in Creta HWV 32
Son qual stanco pellegrino
Stefano Veggetti, Violoncello piccolo
2’24
7’39
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
10 Concerto in F Dur RV 538
Largo Stefano Veggetti, Violoncello piccolo
11 12
3’01
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
Rodelinda HWV 19
Ritorna, caro dolce mio tesoro Giulio Cesare HWV 17
Sinfonia 3’36
0’35
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
13 Orlando finto pazzo RV 727
La speranza verdeggiando
by kind permission of Naïve
3’52
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759)
14 Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno HWV 46a
Tu del ciel Ministro eletto Davide Monti, Violin
5’14
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Gemma Bertagnolli winner of various national
and international competitions, including the
Francesco Viñas (the special prize for the best Mozart
interpretation), has been invited to perform in all
the major theatres and festivals worldwide: Salzburg
Festival, Florence Maggio Musicale, Milan Teatro Scala,
Torino Teatro Regio, Bologna Teatro Comunale, Pesaro
Rossini Festival, Opernhaus Zürich, Berlin Staatsoper,
Rome Accademia Santa Cecilia, Paris Théâtre Champs
Elysées, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Munich Bayerische
Staatsoper, Bruxelles Palais des Beaux Arts, Festivals
de Montpellier-Radio France, Ambronay, Beaune, La
Coruna Festival Mozart, Potsdam Musikfestspiele
Sanssouci, Valencia, Valladolid, Bilbao, Lisbon.
In addition to a vast concert repertoire, which ranges
from Bach, Handel, Pergolesi to Mozart’s whole sacred
works, her operatic repertoire includes the roles of Sophie, Amenaide, Pamina, Zerlina,
Despina, Susanna, Norina, Nannetta, Adele, Gretel, under conductors such as Roberto
Abbado, Bruno Bartoletti, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Semyon Bychkov, Daniele
Gatti, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Zubin
Mehta, Ennio Morricone, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Oren, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Simone
Young, Stefan Anton Reck, Jonathan Webb.
As a specialist in the Baroque repertoire, she has worked with conductors including
Rinaldo Alessandrini, Giovanni Antonini, Fabio Biondi, Ivor Bolton, Christophe Coin,
Alan Curtis, Ottavio Dantone, Alessandro De Marchi, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowsky, Ton
Koopman, Trevor Pinnock, Christina Pluhar, Christophe Rousset, Andreas Spering, JeanChristophe Spinosi, Diego Fasolis.
Her discography includes part of the Vivaldi Integral Edition by Naïve, which won critical
awards (Gramophone Awards, Choc du Monde de la Musique, Timbre de Platine d’Opéra
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International), Cinema concerto with Ennio Morricone for Sony Music and O primeiro canto
with Dulce Pontes for Polydor. Her latest recordings include La Sonnambula – Lisa with
Cecilia Bartoli, Juan Diego Florez and Orchestra “La Scintilla” of Zurich Opera led by
Alessandro De Marchi for Decca, Deità Silvane, Chamber Lyrics by Ottorino Respighi for
Stradivarius. and G. F. Handel, “Venus & Adonis” Cantate and Sonate with Ensemble Zefiro
for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.
Stefano Veggetti obtined his diploma as violoncellist at
the Conservatory of L’ Aquila. He subsequently won a
scholarship to continue his studies in Philadelphia with
Orlando Cole. After returning to Europe, fascinated by
the sound of period instruments, he attended masterclasses with Anner Bijlsma and has since then played as
a soloist and in chamber music ensembles with musicians
who are specialized in period instruments (A. Bijlsma,
S. Ritchie, A. Bernardini, O. Dantone, l’ Archibudelli,
l’ Astrée, G. Cooper) in Europe, Mexico, Canada and
the USA. He has appeared on both radio and television
(RAI, Italy; RDF, Germany; RDP Antena2 Portogal)
and has recorded for Nuova Era (Italy) and Opus 111
(France). Since the year 2000, along with his Cordia
Ensemble, he has worked on newly discovered chamber
and orchestra music from the Baroque and Classic
periods, which will be recorded by the label Brilliant. Stefano Veggetti teaches baroque
cello at the Conservatory in Verona and at various masterclasses across Europe and plays
on the violoncello Nicola Gagliano (1737) ex Oblach, which is kindly provided to him by
the courtesy of Baronessa Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimo.
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The Cordia Ensemble, founded and conducted by Stefano Veggetti, is dedicated to
the performance of Baroque and Classic music. The Ensemble is based in Bruneck
(South Tyrol) and is composed of musicians from South Tyrol and the neighbouring
German and Italian speaking regions, strengthened, according to the project, by famous
European soloists such as Stanley Ritchie, Alfredo Bernardini, Erich Höbarth, Monika
Mauch, Roberta Invernizzi, Christian Hilz, Gemma Bertagnolli, Gary Cooper, Dorothee
Oberlinger. The Concert programmes like to vary between well-known componists (Bach,
Telemann, Vivaldi) and newly discovered pieces (Platti, A. and P. Wranitzky), which
will now be released by the label Brilliant. The use of valuable original instruments the
Ensemble to combine its own conception of an „authentic sound“ with a young, fresh
performance. In 2003 the Cordia Ensemble was invited on a tour with „Les Musiciens du
Louvre“ and in the same year the Ensemble had its debut at the Wiener Konzerthaus in
Vienna. The Cordia Ensemble is supported by the Municipality of Bruneck.
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Ensemble Cordia
Stefano Veggetti
Violin 1: Davide Monti Anonimo Italy 1700
Marialuisa Barbon Anonimo Italy 1700
Lorenzo Gugole Mathias Albanus fecit Bulsani Tyroli 1693
Violin 2: Elisa Imbalzano Matthias Klotz, Mittenwald 1741
Giancarlo Ceccacci Mittenwald 18. cent.
Emanuele Marcante Dominicus Busan fecit Venetiis 1758
Viola:
Krishna Nagaraja Mittenwald 18. cent.
Alessandro Lanaro Mittenwald 18. cent.
Violoncello: Franziska Romaner Pietro Antonio dalla Costa, Treviso 1749;
Italian Basset XVIII cent.,
Stefano Veggetti Nicola Gagliano, Napoli 1737 kindly provided by the courtesy of Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò; violoncello piccolo Johannes Jais, Bulsani in Tyrol 1776
Violone: Riccardo Coelati Rama Mittenwald 18. cent.
Cembalo: Christian Kjos G. Mair, St Lorenzen 2005 after Giusti Theorbo
Pietro Prosser Jiri Cepelak, Prag 1997
Oboe: Konrad Zeller Olivier Cottet (Paris 2004) after Stanesby
Michele Antonello lberto Ponchio 2002, after J. Denner 18. cent.
Horn: Johannes Hinterholzer Andreas Jungwirth after Leichnamschneider, 2001
Egon Lardschneider Andreas Jungwirth after Leichnamschneider, 2001
Basson: Gilat Rotkop Olivier Cottet (Paris 2006), after J. H. Eichentopf,
Leipzig 1740
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Georg Friedrich Händel
Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno
Amore
Una schiera di piaceri
pose in guardia i miei pensieri,
l’altra meco pugnerá.
Si vedrá se del Tempo i morsi altieri
san rapir la mia beltá
si vedrá, si vedrá.
Francesco Maria Veracini
Adriano in Siria
Quel cor che mi donasti
se vuoi tu puoi riprendere
mio caro e dolce amor
Ma non voler sospendere
se il padre é in gran periglio
lo sfogo al mio dolor
Antonio Vivaldi
L’Olimpiade
Meglace
Lo seguitai felice
quand’era il ciel sereno,
nelle tempeste in seno
vuò seguirlo ancor.
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Come dell’oro il foco
scuopre le masse impure,
scuoprono le sventure
de’ falsi amici il cuor.
Georg Friedrich Händel
Arianna in Creta
Alceste
Son qual stanco pellegrino,
che nel dubbio suo cammino
muove incerto, errando il piè.
Ma se poi si fà sua scorta,
face o stella, si conforta.
Rodelinda
Rodelinda
Ritorna, o caro dolce mio tesoro,
a dar conforto e speme a questo cor.
Tu renderai al seno mio ristoro
se refrigerio sei d’ogni dolor.
Antonio Vivaldi
Orlando f into pazzo
Ersilia
La speranza verdeggiando
scossa all’aura del piacer
va col fonte mormorando,
ch’in amor ho da goder.
La costanza per far pago
in sua brama il mio voler
con le chiome del mio vago,
lega i vanni al nume arcier.
Georg Friedrich Händel
Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno
Amore
Tu del ciel ministro eletto,
non vedrai più nel mio petto
voglia infida o vano ardor.
E se vissi ingrata a Dio,
ei custode del mio cor
a lui porti il nuovo cor.
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Passionate Baroque Arias
In 18th-century Italian opera the solo aria – a form of musical expression held in high
favour by Humanist culture (owing to its close link with the word) – was the main, indeed
almost the exclusive, vehicle for expressing the characters’ feelings and emotions. And
the presentation of different expressive situations is surely one of the most characteristic
features of Italian opera. Unlike its French counterpart, Italian opera showed little interest
in any kind of realistic representation of the plot. Instead it focused on the music. Or more
specifically, it concentrated on the capacity of the human voice to arouse emotions, of
which love is naturally one of the most frequently encountered. As a result, the diverse
facets of love (right down to its idealization or to its sacrifice for reasons of state) form the
standard fare of opera plots.
It is something of a commonplace to consider 18th-century opera as little more than
a battleground for the display of virtuoso singers. But it would be truer to say that the
singers became the unchallenged masters of the opera stage precisely because their superb
technique and vocal skills made it possible to highlight the emotions and give musical life
to the ‘affects’; in other words, to the different states of mind of the various characters. It is
no coincidence that the very etymology of the term ‘aria’ (from the Latin aer) is linked to
the concept of a musical ‘mode’, in the sense of a ‘manner of singing’.
To borrow Donald J. Grout’s celebrated image, one could liken the arias of a Baroque opera
to a row of statues lined up in a big hall. Their positioning may be well calculated, but
they are substantially extraneous to one another. This basic ground-plan – a structure of
individual, closed numbers – made it possible for the great singers of the 18th century to
have their own favourite arias, which were known as ‘arie di baule’ (trunk arias) because
they travelled with them from one theatre to the next and from one opera to the next,
simply with a few adjustments to the poetic text.
For the modern listener an opportunity to encounter the different ways of defining the
amorous ‘affects’ in 18th-century opera is not only an agreeable experience; it is also
illuminating. If we strip these numbers from their dramatic contexts (which often have
little influence on the musical forms), it is also easier to detect certain constant features of
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the contemporary operatic style. The present collection begins and ends with two mottos
applied to love, the underlying theme of this survey: “una schiera di piaceri” (a horde of
pleasures) and “vano ardour” (vain ardour). Drawn from two arias from one of Handel’s
early works, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, they fittingly sum up both the many
different shadings of amorous feeling and their irremediably unstable and fleeting nature.
At the time when Handel was residing in Italy, between 1707 and 1709, the Italian
operatic style was just beginning its remarkable conquest of Europe. Some years later
Handel himself, in the double role of composer and impresario, was to be one of the people
mainly responsible for the success of Italian opera in England.
Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno is an allegorical poem by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili
that Handel set shortly after arriving in Rome. It was performed in 1707 at the Collegio
Clementino in an unstaged form. The linear clarity of the aria for Bellezza (Beauty) “Una
schiera di piaceri” shows that the young German composer, at the time just over twenty
years old, had already perfectly assimilated the essential features of the Italian manner.
Thirty years later, in the fullness of his musical maturity, he returned to that youthful
Roman oratorio, and rearranged it for the London audiences of Covent Garden under the
title Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità. And finally in 1757, by then old and stricken with
blindness, he produced a third version, this time with the libretto translated into English,
as The Triumph of Time and Truth.
If we disregard both their subject-matter (in an oratorio it is often a moralizing or edifying
nature) and the presence of allegorical characters in oratorios (in the Trionfo del tempo we
find Love, Beauty, Pleasure, Time and Fidelity), the stylistic differences between oratorio
and opera in the 18th century were generally very slight. Two key features of Italian vocal
music were to be found in both the staged works and the oratorios or cantatas: the close
adherence to the ‘affects’ represented in the poetic text; and the use of very simple musical
structures, particularly the ternary form of the so-called ‘da capo aria’ (ABA’), a form that
allowed the singers great freedom to introduce melodic variants in the reprise of the first
part. These essential elements remained largely unchanged throughout Handel’s career,
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right through the operas of his complete maturity, though naturally they were enriched
by the greater depth of his operatic experience. Rodelinda, Regina de’ Longobardi, with a
libretto by Antonio Salvi revised by Nicola Francesco Haym, was very successfully staged
in London in 1725. Among the amorous ‘affects’ represented, the predominant one is
conjugal fidelity; hence in the aria “Ritorna, o caro dolce mio tesoro”, a veritable jewel
of pre-Galant expression, the lilting pace and the soft, sweet accents aptly portray the
heroine’s desire to be reunited with her beloved.
Arianna in Creta, with a libretto loosely based on a text by Pietro Pariati, came eight years
later and was again performed in London. In Alceste’s aria “Son qual stanco Pellegrino” it
is worth noting the refinement and simplicity of means with which the music highlights
the meaning of the poetic text. Here Handel plays on the metaphor of the pilgrim, with his
slow, halting step, while the pathetic, limping pace of the trochaic (long-short, long-short)
rhythm suggests fatigue and uncertainty.
The Florentine Francesco Maria Veracini, a musician of international fame like Handel,
though esteemed above all as a virtuoso performer, was considered by Charles Burney (an
expert musical connoisseur) to be the greatest violinist in Europe. At the height of his fame
Veracini decided to tackle opera and in 1735 he launched his career as an opera composer
at the King’s Theatre in London, where he had to face the stiff competition of Geminiani
and Handel himself. His first opera, Adriano in Siria, with a libretto by Angelo Cori,
was very well received, with the result that the publisher Walsh even issued a collection
of “favourite songs”. In comparison with Handel’s rich vocal manner, Veracini’s idiom is
certainly more conventional, though there is much to be admired in the simple charm of
the melodic outlines, which adhere to the poetic text with spontaneous appeal.
The simplicity of the ‘da capo aria’ not only lent itself excellently to the improvisational
flair of the singers, who were accustomed to embellishing the repeat of the first section
(da capo) by adding ornaments and cadenzas of all kinds; it also generated further
formal variants. The most important variant was the so-called ‘grand aria’ with a fivepart structure (AA’BAA’’), which could be further expanded by instrumental ritornellos
between the various sections. A splendid example is Megacle’s aria “Lo seguitai felice”
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from L’Olimpiade, an opera on a well-known libretto by Metastasio that Vivaldi set for
the Teatro Sant’Angelo of Venice in 1734. While the first strophe presents a metaphor,
a rhetorical figure dear to the contemporary librettists, the second features a simile. The
“tempests” clearly allude to the misfortunes of life, whereas in the second section the
residues (“impure masses”) remaining after the fusion of gold are compared to one’s alleged
friends, whose treachery is revealed in times of adversity. What attracted Vivaldi was
above all the image of the storm, one of his favourite musical figures, for here he could
pour out the full vigour and energy of his impetuous musical style. The singer, of course,
must execute the taxing passagework with suitable virtuosity and display a matching fiery
temperament.
Ersilia’s aria “La speranza verdeggiando” from the Orlando finto pazzo is a typical Vivaldi
‘bravura aria’, one that requires the singer to command extensive vocal skills and show
an excellent knowledge of performance practice. The opera was staged at the Teatro
Sant’Angelo in 1714. The libretto, by the Venetian man of letters Grazio Braccioli, tells
the story of Orlando and the sorceress Ersilia and mingles the atmosphere of the fairytale with elements drawn from Arcadian culture (nymphs, fauns, pastoral settings). Vivaldi
ignores the bucolic references suggested by Ersilia’s words and instead concentrates on
depicting the characters’ magic powers, which he makes believable (as Mozart was later to
do in The Magic Flute for the Queen of the Night) by resorting to a vocal style that mixes
the unreal and the technically challenging, with stunning effect.
While the voice, with all its virtuosic and expressive resources, remains the unquestioned
protagonist of 18th-century opera, there are also times when the instrumental parts do
much more than merely accompany the vocal lines. Handel, in particular, was especially
adept at matching the timbres of instruments and human voices, whether by similarity
or by contrast. At times the instruments are required to anticipate the vocal line or add
passages of comment during its development, as we find, for example, in the cello part of
Alceste’s aria from Arianna in Creta. One conspicuous result of the immense popularity of
opera in Italy is surely the tendency (revealed in much of the contemporary instrumental
music) to emulate the operatic idiom. In this respect Vivaldi was naturally the unequalled
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master, though the trend was also well represented in the in Italian-trained German
composers such as Johann Adolf Hasse and especially Handel. In both the aria ritornellos
and his independent instrumental works Handel applied his considerable imaginative
resources to adapting the inflections and accents of vocal music to the expressive qualities
of individual instruments.
Laura Och
Translation Hugh Ward-Perkins
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The Ensemble Cordia wishes to thank for their kind help and support of this project
Marianne & Georg Mair, Sigrid & Heinz Zelger
Baronessa Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò
Concept & music project: Stefano Veggetti
Recording location: Pfarrkirche Kiens (Südtirol) 7-9 /8/2007
Recording producer, balance engineer, digital editing: Diego Cantalupi
Assistant: Daniel Comploi
Cover picture: Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)
Das Mädchen mit der Perle
Maurithuis, Den Haag
Photos: Ensemble Cordia © Martin Tinkhauser, Stefano Veggetti © Oliver
Oppitz, Gemma Bertagnolli © Gian Paolo Allegri
www.cordia.it
by kind permission of Naïve
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