L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

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L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (HWV 55) is an oratorio in three parts by George Frideric Handel .

Emergence

Handel began composing the first part on January 19, 1740 and finished it six days later. He finished the second part on February 2nd and the third on February 4th. He completed the instrumentation and filling of the middle parts on February 9 of the same year.

The work was premiered on February 27, 1740 at the theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields . The vocal soloists at this performance were:

The work was a great success right from the first performance. In the first year five performances were given. In January 1741 the oratorio was added to the repertoire at the same theater and some numbers were added. During the preparation period for the first performance of the Messiah , it was played in the New Music Hall in Dublin from December 1741 to March 1742 .

Further performances in London took place in 1743, 1754 and 1755. For these performances, Handel omitted the third part, Il Moderato , and added the one-part Ode for St. Cecilia's Day instead .

libretto

The source for the oratorio text lies in the two poems L'Allegro (cheerfulness) and Il Penseroso (melancholy), in which John Milton allegorically described the contrast between the two moods in 1632.

Charles Jennens compiled the libretto for the first two parts of the oratorio from these poems. At the suggestion of Handel, he wrote a third part, Il Moderato (moderation), which, however, is much smaller than the first two parts.

literature

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