TRANSCRIPT: June 17, 2020 MID-WEEK MUSICAL INTERLUDES #7 Hi, my name is Melissa Givens, Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College in Claremont, California, and I'd like to welcome you to “Mid-Week Musical Interludes,” our podcast series featuring an array of glorious new and not-so-new works as recently performed by faculty, guests and students of Pomona College. For more information on the music from our podcasts please visit us at pomona.edu/musicpodcast, and music podcast is all one word. This episode spotlights Cornucopia Baroque Ensemble in selections by George Frideric Handel. Today’s program opens with one of his German arias Die ihr aus dunkeln Grüften, and is followed by the first two movements of his Trio Sonata in F Major, Opus 2, Number 4. The aria In den angenehmen Büschen closes this week’s episode.   The members of Cornucopia performing today – all on period instruments – are Aki Nishiguchi, alto recorder; Alfred Cramer, violin; Roger Lebow, cello; and Graydon Beeks, harpsichord. Singing soprano is yours truly, Melissa Givens. Die ihr aus dunkeln Grüften Den eiteln Mammon grabt, Seht, was ihr hier in Lüften Für reiche Schätze habt. Sprecht nicht: es ist nur Farb’ und Schein. Man zählt und schließt es nicht im Kasten ein. Die ihr aus dunkeln Grüften Den eiteln Mammon grabt, Seht, was ihr hier in Lüften Für reiche Schätze habt. In den angenehmen Büschen Wo sich Licht und Schatten mischen, Suchet sich in stiller Lust Aug’ und Herze zu erfrischen. Dann erhebt sich in der Brust Mein zufriedenes Gemüte, Und lobsingt des Schöpfers Güte. ___________________________________________________________ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE PODCAST, including text translations: This podcast includes selections from the November 2018 Friday Noon Concert in Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building located on the campus of Pomona College, 340 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA. The Cornucopia Baroque Ensemble was established in 2008 by colleagues in the Pomona College Music Department with the goal of exploring lesser-known byways of Baroque chamber music. The ensemble performs on period instruments Read about the performers: Alfred Cramer, baroque violin    www.pomona.edu/directory/people/alfred-cramer Aki Nichiguchi, baroque oboe and recorder    www.brahmamusic.org/aki-nishiguchi.html Roger Lebow, baroque cello    www.congioia.org/artist-roger-lebow.html Graydon Beeks, harpsichord    www.pomona.edu/directory/people/graydon-f-beeks Melissa Givens, soprano    www.pomona.edu/directory/people/melissa-e-givens Text Translations: You who from dark vaults (Die ihr aus dunkeln Grüften) Dig out useless mammon, Behold what treasures await you Here in the open air. Do not say: It is merely light and color. It cannot be counted and locked up in coffers. In these pleasant bushes, (In den angenehmen Büschen,) Where light and Shade intermingle, Eyes and hearts strive to refresh Themselves in silent joy. Then my contented soul Uplifts itself in my breast, And praises the Creator’s goodness. Programs Notes: By Graydon Beeks Handel composed nine arias for soprano voice, obbligato instrument and basso continuo in London around 1724-26. The German texts, which are mostly concerned with the goodness of God as displayed in the beauty of nature, were written by the Hamburg Senator and amateur poet Barthold Brockes and included in the collection Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott, published in 1721 with an expanded second edition 1724. Handel’s settings were presumably intended for performance in Hamburg, but under what circumstances is not known. The obbligato instrument is not specified in the surviving autograph manuscript. All the arias can be performed with violin, as they are in this performance, but several of them have a narrower range that would be suitable for an oboe or a flute. Die ihr aus dunkeln Grüften, HWV 208, is, like all but one of the arias, in a standard da capo form. In den angenehmen Büschen, HWV 209, on the other hand, is through-composed, although Handel brings back the opening ritornello at the end. The Trio Sonata in F Major, HWV 389, was almost certainly composed sometime in the period 1717-1722, either at Cannons, the country estate of Handel’s patron James Brydges, Earl of Carnarvon and from April 1719 First Duke of Chandos, or during Handel’s 1719 visit to Dresden where he traveled to recruit singers for the Italian Opera company that would open the next year as the Royal Academy of Music. No autograph survives, and the secondary manuscripts are unhelpful concerning the question of scoring. Both treble parts can be played by violins, but the more restricted range of the upper voice, while too high for an oboe, fits the compass and favorite key of the alto recorder very well. Handel made some revisions to fifth and last movement, probably around 1727-28, and seems by this time to have intended the top voice to be played by the newly popular transverse flute. This is the instrument designated by the London publisher John Walsh when he issued the piece around 1730 as no. 4 in the collection VI Sonates a deux Violins, deux hautbois ou deux Flutes traversieres & Bassse Continue Composées Par G.F. Handel, Op.2. Since he pretended that this publication was by the Amsterdam-based publisher Jean Roger, it was probably done without the permission of the composer. The first two movements are in the standard slow-fast format, and it is striking that the upper voice only drops below the second voice on a handful of occasions, which is not the case with the other Op.2 sonatas.