Händel or not Händel

[mehdi_caps]

Saturday, I listened for the first time to the "Marian Cantatas & Arias", a CD with sacred works by Händel. This is a gorgeous recording. Swedish mezzosoprano Anne Sofie von Otter is at her best, and is wonderfully accompanied by the Musica Antiqua Köln, conducted by Reinhard Goebel. It was released in 1994.

One of the four works is Il pianto di

Comments

[mehdi_caps]

I don't know much details about that, alas. I love reading pages and pages about this kind of things. For example, the article Did Purcell set The Tempest? by Margaret Laurie fascinates me. She gives us as many details as possible, and we're able to make our own opinion about the reattribution to John Weldon.

Il pianto di Maria and Johannes Passion are too opposite cases.

Il pianto has always(*) been regarded as a work by Händel, and it's only recently (just before ASvO's recording) that musicologists discovered "things" that tend to prove (but don't prove definitely, I believe) that it was composed by Ferrandini around 1735. I've listened again to that work several times, and I'm now ready to accept that it's not by Händel. Oddly enough, the beginning sounds like late 17th-century music, and the last aria, the very beautiful "Pari all'amor immenso", sounds like the Händel of the operas. It's a strange work. Its author was certainly not deprived of genius. I've read that Ferrandini was mediocre, but he actually had a very decent career, and it seems that his opera Catone in Utica (the only recording of one of his works, besides Il pianto, as far as I know) is quite good. I'd be curious to hear it.

Johannes Passion, on the other end, is generally not attributed to Händel, but some people think it could have been written by him, and all I can say is that it's a very beautiful and gracious work, that makes me happy and satisfied at the end, just like most of Händel's works do.
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(*) Well, actually, I believe that the manuscript of Händel's Il pianto was lost, and a musicologist later discovered a setting of the same text, and he attributed it to Händel, because of its powerful beauty.

[cinnamontwist]

You have me curious. I think I shall have to have a listen to Il Pianto myself now and hopefully find Catone in Utica to make a comparison of the style and quality.