Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick
Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's
"Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love
that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and
resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like
the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music,
and perhaps Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English
oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely
known in his own time, are the province mainly of
specialists in Baroque music, ...(+)
Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick
Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's
"Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love
that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and
resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like
the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music,
and perhaps Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English
oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely
known in his own time, are the province mainly of
specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his
life, even though they reflected some of the most
important musical issues of the day, have never become
as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps
the single word that best describes his life and music
is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in
Italy, who spent most of his life in England.
"Meine Seele hört im Sehen" (HWV 207) is the sixth of
a set of nine songs that Handel wrote to the
German-language texts of Barthold Heinrich Brockes from
his collection Irdisches Vergnuegen in Gott
(Contentment on Earth through God). The tone of the
text is religious in an easygoing manner. All of these
songs are in ABA form with vocal declamation that is
lyrical, sometimes melismatic, and never virtuosic. The
instrumentation of the accompaniment is flexible, and
the performers are allowed to choose whichever
instruments are appropriate and available for the
continuo and instrumental obbligato.
The vocal line in this song, whose title translates as
"My Soul Hears through Seeing, " holds forth in a
pleasant duple meter over a "walking" bass line in the
continuo. The text deals with the synesthesia of
hearing things usually thought of as visual. The
obbligato instrument sometimes answers the singer and
sometimes harmonizes with him. The dotted rhythms of
the obbligato instrument sometimes show up in the vocal
part.
Although originally composed for Voice (Soprano)
Strings & Continuo, I created this Arrangement for
Flute, Oboe and Harpsichord.
(by Magatagan, Michael)340x⬇ 232x
