Arcadian Affairs – Handel Continuo Cantatas Christian Kjos, Ditte Marie Bræin & Marianne Beate Kielland

• Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759): Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138:
• 1 Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138: Prelude HWV 434 01:43
• 2 Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138: Nice, che fa? Che pensa? (recitativo) 00:57
• 3 Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138: Se pensate chi mi moro (aria – adagio) 04:28
• 4 Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138: Ah! Per maggior mio duolo (recitativo) 01:10
• 5 Nice, che fa? Che pensa? HWV 138: Verrà, sì, verrà chi adoro (aria – allegro, ma non presto) 04:39
• Chi rapì la pace al core? HWV 90:
• 6 Chi rapì la pace al core? HWV 90: Chi rapì la pace al core? (aria – adagio) 03:31
• 7 Chi rapì la pace al core? HWV 90: Figlio d’un fabbro (recitativo) 00:28
• 8 Chi rapì la pace al core? HWV 90: Pupilla lucente (aria – andante) 03:59
• Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115:
• 9 Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115: Sonata HWV 580 01:59
• 10 Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115: Fra pensieri quel pensiero (aria – [...]) 02:30
• 11 Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115: E se fia che volando (recitativo) 01:15
• 12 Fra pensieri quel pensiero HWV 115: Pronti l’ale dispiegate (aria – allegro) 03:22
• Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a:
• 13 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Prelude HWV 576 01:02
• 14 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Lungi dal mio bel nume (recitativo) 00:55
• 15 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Lontano al mio tesoro (aria – andante) 05:21
• 16 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Senza la vaga Clori (recitativo) 00:39
• 17 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Son come navicella (aria – allegro) 02:28
• 18 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Lungi da te, ben mio (recitativo) 00:37
• 19 Lungi dal mio bel nume HWV 127a: Torna, vieni non tardare (aria – [...]) 03:27
• Lucrezia HWV 145:
• 20 Lucrezia HWV 145: Oh numi eterni! (recitativo) 00:56
• 21 Lucrezia HWV 145: Già superbo del mio affanno (aria – adagio) 04:51
• 22 Lucrezia HWV 145: Ma voi forse nel cielo (recitativo) 00:48
• 23 Lucrezia HWV 145: Il suol che preme (aria – allegro) 03:19
• 24 Lucrezia HWV 145: Ah! che ancor nell’abisso (recitativo) 00:41
• 25 Lucrezia HWV 145: Questi la disperata anima mia (furioso) 00:37
• 26 Lucrezia HWV 145: Alla salma infedel porga la pena (larghetto) 02:41
• 27 Lucrezia HWV 145: A voi, padre, consorte (recitativo) (NOFZS1965270) 00:55
• 28 Lucrezia HWV 145: Già nel seno (arioso) 00:36
• 29 Lucrezia HWV 145: Sento ch’il cor si scuote (recitativo) 00:26
• 30 Lucrezia HWV 145: Ma se qui non m’edato (furioso) 00:35
• Total Runtime 01:00:55

Info zu Arcadian Affairs – Handel Continuo Cantatas

Handel's years in Italy (ca. 1706-1710) were extremely creative. His chamber cantatas were performed by the most eminent singers and instrumentalists in Rome. Exploring the art of continuo playing in Handel's 'continuo cantatas', harpsichordist Christian Kjos, soprano Ditte Marle braein and mezzo-soprano Marlanne Beate release an album with captivating interpretations.

The chamber cantata was a popular genre in Italy. Their main subject is passionate love in all its facets between the shepherds in the romanticized region of Arcadia in Greece. Handel wrote around seventy continuo cantatas a lesser known genre among his rich output performed at weekly musical gatherings in the palaces of his Roman patrons.

Christian Kjos - "Continuo playing can be rendered in various degrees of complexity, depending on the skill of the performer. The treatise Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731) by Johann Mattheson Handel's friend from his Hamburg years gave me the incentive to research this rarely heard approach and to try it out in Handel's equally rarely played continuo cantatas where the continuo part is so fundamental to the result. What might be most noticeable is how frequently I abandon chordal playing to let more melodic material, imitations, parallel thirds and added dissonances into the realization, making it sound closer to an obbligato harpsichord part. Therefore, I have deliberately chosen to render these cantatas solely with harpsichord accompaniment. This chamber musical duo format like the later German Lieder seems especially suitable in terms of chamber musical flexibility, and in order to hear the independent realization even better."

Ditte Marie Bræin, soprano
Marianne Beate Kielland, mezzo-soprano
Christian Kjos, harpsichord

Christian Kjos
(b. 1980) is one of Norway’s most active harpsichordists. After studying at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH) in Oslo with Knut Johannessen and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel, Switzerland with Jesper Christensen, he has been a freelance harpsichordist and continuo player in several of Norway’s early music ensembles. He has been much involved in artistic matters in Barokkanerne and the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra (from 2018 united as Barokkanerne – Norwegian Baroque Ensemble) and has taken part in several CD recordings with the before mentioned ensembles as well as Trondheim Baroque and Ensemble Cordia in Italy. Christian has played with Concerto Copenhagen under Alfredo Bernardini and is a founding member of the Swiss-based Ensemble Meridiana with whom he has won several first prizes in international early music competitions and released recordings on Linn Classics and Chandos Classics. Christian has been a research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music since 2015 with the artistic research project ‘Releasing the ‘Loudie’, harpsichord accompaniment in the G. F. Handel’s continuo cantatas’. The Norwegian composer and writer Eivind Buene and the Danish harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen has been his supervisors. In the course of the project, Christian has deepened his special relationship with Handel, his music and its performance practical aspects. Sept. 2019

Marianne Beate Kielland
"Gramophone" writes about Marianne Beate Kielland: «The mezzo-soprano is quite outstanding: strong, firm, sensitive in modulations, imaginative in her treatment of words, with a voice pure in quality, wide in range and unfalteringly true in intonation.»

She is educated from Norwegian Academy of Music, where she studied with Svein Bjørkøy. She has also studied with Oren Brown and Barbara Bonney. She is one of Scandinavia’s foremost singers, and she regularly appears in the concert halls of Europe, Japan and America with conductors such as: Phillippe Herreweghe, Fabio Biondi, Jordi Savall, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Christophe Rousset, Marc Minkowski, Masaaki Suzuki, Thomas Søndergård, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Thomas Dausgaard, Jos van Immerseel, Manfred Honeck, Daniel Reuss and Christian Eggen.

In 2012 she was US Grammy nominee in "Best Vocal Classical Album» for «Veslemøy Synsk» by Olav Anton Thommessen, and with this and more than 40 other recordings and a wide range of repertoire and performances, she is established as a remarkable interpreter of music from baroque to contemporary era.

Ditte Marie Bræin
The Danish soprano, Ditte Marie Bræin, was born into a musical family from Kristiansund and the surrounding area. She is the daughter of clarinetist Hans Christian Bræin, granddaughter of composer Edvard Fliflet Bræin, great granddaughter of composer / organist / conductor Edvard Bræin and backstage granddaughter of composer / organist Christian Bræin. She received her education at the Norwegian Music School with Svein Bjørkøy and Randi Stene and completed her studies in 2015.

After her studies, Ditte Marie Bræin could have auditioned singing in the Det Norske Solistkor (Director: Grete Pedersen). In 2013 she was already one of the soloists in George Frideric Handel's Messiah at a performance in Moss . Her fame stretches out to Vietnam, where she also sang G.F. Handel's oratorio. On May 17, 2015 (May 17, the national holiday in Norway) she gave a concert in Ålesund, with works by Rikard Nordraak, Ludvig Irgens-Jensen, Edvard Grieg and Edvard Fliflet Bræin. Of the latter, Kantate til Ålesunds 100-års jubileum celebrated her premiere. Her voice can be heard in a work by Per Nørgård (Julens Glæde, Himmelfalden) on BIS Records.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet