Six Chamber Cantatas 1708

During the first decade of the eighteenth century, a new generation of Italian composers brought the latest styles to a Vienna lagging behind the musical innovations that were occurring in cities such as Venice, Rome, and Naples. Among the intrepid individuals to join the Habsburg court was the north Italian composer Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677–1726). When Antonio began his service to the Habsburg emperor, he was still a young and little-known composer, but it was in Vienna that he distinguished himself as one of his generation’s most gifted composers of dramatic vocal music. The six cantatas by Antonio Bononcini found in this edition, from the Viennese manuscript A-Wn, Mus.Hs.17587, represent the new Italian style that flourished at the imperial Viennese court of Emperor Joseph I. Through their innovative use of form, design features, and affective harmony, melody, and rhythm, they demonstrate that, although Antonio’s cantata output is much smaller than that of his more famous brother Giovanni, his compositional style reveals a composer of superior craftsmanship and imagination.

During the first decade of the eighteenth century, a new generation of Italian composers brought the latest styles to a Vienna lagging behind the musical innovations that were occurring in cities such as Venice, Rome, and Naples. Among the intrepid individuals to join the Habsburg court was the north Italian composer Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677–1726). When Antonio began his service to the Habsburg emperor, he was still a young and little-known composer, but it was in Vienna that he distinguished himself as one of his generation’s most gifted composers of dramatic vocal music. The six cantatas by Antonio Bononcini found in this edition, from the Viennese manuscript A-Wn, Mus.Hs.17607, are written for soprano or alto with strings, and the string instrumentation is unique in specifying two of the violins and the violoncello as di concerto (that is, concertino), and two violins and double bass as di concerto grosso (that is, ripieno). These cantatas represent the new Italian style that flourished at the imperial Viennese court of Emperor Joseph I. Through their innovative use of form, design features, affective harmony, melody, and rhythm, they demonstrate that, although Antonio’s cantata output is much smaller than that of his more famous brother Giovanni, his compositional style reveals a composer of superior craftsmanship and imagination.

Detailed survey of Vivaldi's unjustly neglected chamber cantatas, showing them to stand comparison with his more famous works. Vivaldi's chamber cantatas for solo voice, some forty in total, are steadily gaining in popularity: but because of their relatively small place in the oeuvre of a composer famed for his productivity, and also on account of the general scholarly neglect of their genre, they are little discussed in the literature. This book comprehensively explores their literary and musical background, their relation to the composer's biography, the chronology of their composition, and their musical qualities. Each cantata is discussed individually, but there is also a broader consideration of aspects concerning them collectively, such as performance practice, topical allusion, and the conventions of Italian verse. The author argues that while Vivalid's cantatas are not as innovative as his concertos and operas, he produced several masterpieces in the genre that rank with his best music. MICHAEL TALBOT is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool.

Handel wrote over 100 cantatas, compositions for voice and instruments decsribing the joy and pain of love. In the first comprehensive study of the cantatas, Harris investigates their place in Handel's life as well as their extraordinary beauty.

Book URL: https://www.areditions.com/rr/rrb/b172.html The six cantatas included in this edition are the sole surviving compositions of Girolamo Polani. Born in the Venetian state ca. 1670, Polani joined the cappella of San Marco, Venice, in 1689 as a soprano. Between 1700 and 1717 he was also active as a composer for the Venetian stage, once crossing swords with Vivaldi. In 1717 he came to Britain, where he remained¿or at least stayed for long periods¿during the rest of his poorly documented life. He was in the service of Lady Grisell Baillie as a music master in 1735¿36. It was in Britain around the same time that he produced his cantatas: a set of six concise scores for soprano and continuo preserved in the British Library. These remarkably fine works, which manage to combine galant elements with traditional counterpoint in an original way, are testimonies to the Indian summer that the Italian chamber cantata enjoyed on British soil during the period of Handel¿s operas.

The Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets provides a clear and engaging one-volume guide to the major interpretative questions currently engaging scholars of the twelve Minor Prophets by collecting 40 essays by both established and emerging scholars who explore a wide range of methodological perspectives. Divided into four sections, the first group of essays is devoted to historical studies which consider the manuscript evidence for these books and overview debates about how, when, and by whom they were composed. Essays dealing with literary explorations consider the genres and rhetorical style of the material, key themes, and intertextual connections with other sections of the Jewish and Christian canons. A large section on the history of interpretation traces the ways in which past and present confessional communities, scholars, and artists have understood the Minor Prophets. In the final section, essays on individual books of the twelve Minor Prophets explore the structure, themes, and contested issues of each book.