Word: moderato
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...Sunday October 26, the Handel and Haydn Society, under the direction of Christopher Hogwood, presented the second of two performances of their season opener, Handel's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato. This 1740 work combines excerpts from two Milton poems, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, with original poetry by Handel's librettist Charles Jennens, the Il Moderato, set to what is essentially orchestral accompaniment...
...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...
...entire Quartet showed a sort of 'updated Romantic' sense of time: not too obvious, but always just enough to suggest captivating emotions. Kim and Hwang's deep sounds--the violist's from a gigantic instrument--provided most of the warmth of the opening Andante espressivo-Allegro molto moderato...
...Strings," a bastion of the string repertoire and the oddly-placed anchor of the program's first half. In the first movement, Metamorphosen produced impeccable entrances in the strings' higher octaves and gave more emotional weight to the first two themes than they usually receive. The tempo for this Moderato was definitely stately but never too slow...
Where Davidson's talent lies in the succinctly evocative, Kletzsch grants himself a freer hand over his composition, allowing the generous repetition of themes to broaden his canvas. Sometimes, as in moments during the first movement, 'moderato cantabile', the repetition tends to long-windedness; a series of triplet structures, for example, seem a bit too obvious in their last few recapitulations (especially after the piece's lovely opening, reminiscent of a Bach sarabande...