* Acknowledgments * Note on the Musical Examples * Prologue: "The Ways of the World" *1. Code Names and Assumed Identities *2. Women's Voices/Men's Voices *3. Pastoral Lovers *4. Cantata Couples and Love Triangles *5. Silence and Secrecy *6. Culmination of the Private * Epilogue: "True Representation" * Appendix 1: Cantata Chronology * Appendix 2: Texts and Translations of the Continuo Cantatas * Bibliographic Abbreviations * Notes * Title Index of Handel's Cantatas, Duets, and Trios * General Index
This book deserves triple applause: first for revealing a shockingly neglected portion of Handel repertoire--nearly a hundred cantatas, almost all overlooked--secondly for opening the door to the social and sexual context of this writing, and revealing, if not Handel's private life, at least the surrounding atmosphere and mores of his aristocratic patrons; and thirdly for enlivening it with the true enthusiasm of a musician as well as a musicologist. -- Christopher Hogwood, conductor, harpsichordist, and author of Handel In this soberly provocative study, Ellen Harris compels us to rethink how we understand the relation between sexuality and the music of one of the most significant composers in the Western classical tradition. Handel as Orpheus is exciting. -- Jeffrey Kallberg, University of Pennsylvania A remarkable achievement. Handel as Orpheus is a thorough study of Handel's chamber cantatas that situates the works within their social and cultural context. Handel's cantatas are arguably his most important works from the point of view of his development as a composer. Harris shows how Handel's stylistic development can be viewed in terms of his changing response to the ideas and interests of his patrons. -- Ellen Rosand, Yale University
Ellen T. Harris is Class of 1949 Professor and Head of Music and Theater Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This book deserves triple applause: first for revealing a
shockingly neglected portion of Handel repertoire--nearly a hundred
cantatas, almost all overlooked--secondly for opening the door to
the social and sexual context of this writing, and revealing, if
not Handel's private life, at least the surrounding atmosphere and
mores of his aristocratic patrons; and thirdly for enlivening it
with the true enthusiasm of a musician as well as a
musicologist.
*Christopher Hogwood, conductor, harpsichordist, and author of
Handel*
In this soberly provocative study, Ellen Harris compels us to
rethink how we understand the relation between sexuality and the
music of one of the most significant composers in the Western
classical tradition. Handel as Orpheus is exciting.
*Jeffrey Kallberg, University of Pennsylvania*
A remarkable achievement. Handel as Orpheus is a thorough study of
Handel's chamber cantatas that situates the works within their
social and cultural context. Handel's cantatas are arguably his
most important works from the point of view of his development as a
composer. Harris shows how Handel's stylistic development can be
viewed in terms of his changing response to the ideas and interests
of his patrons.
*Ellen Rosand, Yale University*
Harris has written numerous scholarly studies on Handel's music.
Here, she restricts herself to a discussion of his chamber cantatas
from a social point of view, exposing the exclusive and secret
homosexual society in which they were created...Though well written
and extremely interesting, this study is not for the casual reader;
it includes extensive musical and textual analysis and requires
some background in 18th-century social and music history. Suitable
for large public and academic libraries.
*Library Journal*
Could George Frideric Handel have been gay? And if so, what, if
anything, would that tell us about the music he wrote? These
questions--equally challenging in their respective ways--have been
around for a while, generally at the fringes of musical
scholarship. Now they have been raised with fresh urgency by a
provocative new book, Handel as Orpheus.
*San Francsico Chronicle*
[T]his book is both the first comprehensive musicological study of
Handel's cantatas and a homosexual interpretation of their texts
and music, reflecting the same-sex activities of the aristocratic
circles in which Handel worked...Offering a well-rounded view of
the cantatas, she presents a thoroughly documented case for
interpreting the encoding and restraint used to veil same-sex
meanings, while meticulously presenting alternative or multiple
interpretations and other historical information.
*Choice*
At the core of Handel as Orpheus is a study of Handel's continuo
and instrumental cantatas, a subject Ellen Harris embarked on over
25 years ago. Marshalling the results of archival and manuscript
research as well as her own musical and literary analyses, Harris
offers a contextual interpretation of the cantatas and their
musical development; grouping Handel's cantatas by time and place
of composition, she explores the characteristics of each
period.
*Early Music*
A comfortingly humane work of scholarship. The topic of Handel's
sexuality--very much germane to the Italian cantatas that are Ms.
Harris's principle concern--is addressed with candor and sympathy.
We come closer to the composer, partly by feeling the shape of
doubt.
*New York Times*
Ellen Harris demonstrates in this magnificent book how, on the one
hand, not all the meanings of texts will submit to the authors'
control (this I had expected), but also, on the other, how a
meaning imparted by an author may be "true to life" insofar as it
is concealed. This I had not expected to work so well: to have
traced the author's voice in his musical as well as his
biographical silences is an achievement for which Ellen Harris
should be envied.
*Journal of the American Musicological Society*
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