Word: ils
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mussorgsky's response to Hartmann's "The Old Castle, "Il vecchio castello," was revelatory under Pratt's clarity of musical thought: the piece presented itself as motivically similar to much of Chopin's third Ballade, and later seemed like the genesis for the inverted figures of "Bydlo." These discoveries would never have emerged from one of the many orchestrated versions of "Pictures...
...Il Elle...
...respectively. The exceptional soloists gave performances worthy of Hogwood's illustrious direction, perhaps even of Milton himself. Especially notable were sopranos Sharon Baker and Lisa Saffer, whose powerful voices captured both the light, lilting passages of L'Allegro and the "grave music," as Handel termed it, of Il Penseroso. Christine Brandes, also soprano, however, sounded a bit too bright and overharsh at times. Tenor Alan Bennett and bass David Thomas also demonstrated impressive talent and musical sensitivity...
...Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato is composed of three parts. The first and second are interspersed excerpts from L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, chosen and arranged, scholars now believe, by a friend and colloborator of Handel's, James Harris. L'Allegro is, as the title suggests, full of bright, youthful phrasing and imagery. Hymen is invoked and the praise of "bustling cities" sung. Il Penseroso, on the other hand, is filled with the language of age, of cloisters, weariness and Heaven. The speaker plans to enter "a peaceful hermitage" where he hopes to sit and reflect...
...almost verging even on morose, culminating in the final couplet of the work: a grandiose choral motto, "Thy pleasures, Moderation, give/ In them alone we truly live." Moderation is not quite so enchanting a subject as either the joie de vivre of L'Allegro or the melancholic beauty of Il Penseroso. Nor could any claim that Jennens' verse stands quite equal to the Milton it seeks to reprove. Though the music is still lovely, the final reprimand of Il Moderato seems hardly the proper note on which to end a work largely hymning youthful exuberance and the contemplative life...