Uploaded June 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Presented by Ellen T. Harris, Class of 1949 Professor Emeritus at MIT | Handel’s Italian cantatas were a proving ground of Handel’s mature dramatic style. While he found the breadth and depth of his own expressive voice in the voices of abandoned women, he also learned, especially from leading members of the Arcadian Academy in Rome, how to control this feminized lamenting with the rational, masculinized principles of style and structure. And at both extremes he wrote some of the most beautiful and remarkable music of his entire career.
A Pre-Concert Talk for Handel as Orpheus with Amanda Forsythe, soprano, and the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble. Learn more at bemf.org/2021-festival/festival-concerts/amanda-forsythe
Presented by Ellen T. Harris, Class of 1949 Professor Emeritus at MIT | Handel’s Italian cantatas were a proving ground of Handel’s mature dramatic style. While he found the breadth and depth of his own expressive voice in the voices of abandoned women, he also learned, especially from leading members of the Arcadian Academy in Rome, how to control this feminized lamenting with the rational, masculinized principles of style and structure. And at both extremes he wrote some of the most beautiful and remarkable music of his entire career.
A Pre-Concert Talk for Handel as Orpheus with Amanda Forsythe, soprano, and the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble. Learn more at bemf.org/2021-festival/festival-concerts/amanda-forsythe
