Handel: As Steals the Morn - Kate Royal and Ian Bostridge. BBC Proms 2007

This is a ravishingly gorgeous duet that had the price of me the first time I heard it, such is its lilting beauty. It is winningly performed here at the BBC Proms 2007 in the Royal Albert Hall by Kate Royal and Ian Bostridge. For me, Handel is Bach wearing his heart on his sleeve. Eat me...

The Music

From George Frideric Handel's oratorio "L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed Il Moderato" ("The Cheerful, the Thoughtful, and the Moderate Man") HWV 55. It is a pastoral ode based on the poetry of John Milton. However, "As Steals the Morn" (featured here) is adapted from Shakespeare's Tempest, V.i.65–68.

Handel composed the work over the period of 19 January to 4 February 1740, and the work was premiered on 27 February 1740 at the Royal Theatre of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. At the urging of one of Handel's librettists, Charles Jennens, Milton's two poems, L'Allegro and il Penseroso, were arranged by James Harris, interleaving them to create dramatic tension between the personified characters of Milton's poems (L'Allegro or the "Joyful man" and il Penseroso or the "Contemplative man"). The first two movements consist of this dramatic dialogue between Milton's poems. In an attempt to unite the two poems into a singular "moral design", at Handel's request, Jennens added a new poem, "il Moderato", to create a third movement.

Performance

Kate Royal, soprano
Ian Bostridge, tenor

Freiburg baroque orchestra & Orchestra of the age of enlightenment
Directed from the keyboard by Stephen Devine

Text (Shakespeare)

As steals the morn upon the night
And melts the shades away:
So Truth does Fancy's charm dissolve
And rising Reason puts to flight
The fumes that did the mind involve
Restoring intellectual day

Видео Handel: As Steals the Morn - Kate Royal and Ian Bostridge. BBC Proms 2007 канала AntPDC