Mar 28, 2024  
College Catalog 2019-2020 
    
College Catalog 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GRMUS H619 — Handel: from Sources to Sound

2 credits
Spring
Ellen Harris

Performing a Handel opera or oratorio is not as simple as opening a score and playing what you see. The informed performer needs to go back to the sources and make independent judgments about multiple issues. After an introduction to the nature and construction of Handel’s autographs and conducting scores (fair copies), we will examine a variety of performing issues in specific instances, such as unresolved differences between the autographs and conducting scores; singing style embedded in Handel’s text settings; performance information embedded in Handel’s borrowings; and how Handel would cut a large-scale composition to fit into a reduced timeframe. These issues will lead us to examine specific instances in a number of Handel’s cantatas, operas, and oratorios. I expect class members to help determine the flow of topics over the course of the semester and, whenever possible, to assist in performances of alternate solutions to some of these issues.