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Re: Lydia has been peeking around corners of late, so...
in reply to a message by Puck
Handel wrote an Oratorio by the name of Alexander's Feast. Handel was a master of melody and modulation - creating that heavenly appeal; if interested - try the five-minute aria: "War He Sung is Toil & Trouble" with Emma Kirkby - soprano and Christopher Hogwood conducting the baroque orchestra using 'period instruments'. Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures:
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour, but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying;
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee...
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Lovely piece :) I have a recording.
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I have it as well - "Emma Kirkby sings Mrs Arne": While I love Handel above all baroque Opera - I also enjoy the tunes by Thomas Arne using texts from Comus. Have you heard Handel's Semele?
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