Händel en Italie : Cantates, Airs et Sérénades Coffret Digipack

Description

As always inspired, the label Brilliant Classics offers us in this beautiful box set an exciting journey through Italy in the footsteps of the young Handel. It would be a meeting with the composer Giovanni Battista Bononcini that prompts Handel to travel to Italy in the autumn of 1706. At the age of 21, he had already made a name for himself as a musician and opera composer in Hamburg, then the great cultural and musical center of northern Germany. From Florence, where he meets Alessandro Scarlatti, to Rome, where he settles, this three-year stay is remarkably fruitful. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, his talent introduces him to influential figures in the papal city, and he mingles with many musicians (Corelli, Caldara, Pasquini, and especially Domenico Scarlatti, with whom he will remain closely connected), as well as art-loving patrons for whom he composes his first major sacred works. His travels in the peninsula also take him to Naples and Venice, cities with a rich musical life, where he encounters once again the great agitators of the local cultural scene. This tour of Italy proves to be conducive to a true personal and artistic revelation for the young Handel, who fully immerses himself in his environment, develops his ideas, refines a style, and gains considerable renown before settling in London. A fascinating glimpse into a lesser-known episode of the composer's life, beautifully presented here by top-notch performers.