Handel and the pastoral tradition By Ellen T. Harris

Handel and the pastoral tradition book 2

Handel and the Pastoral Tradition Handel and the pastoral traditionpersuasively arguing that the salient categories of operatic composition at the turn of the seventeenth century were the heroic and the pastoral Harris demonstrates the centrality of the pastoral genre to Handel s oeuvre Handel s turn to spectacular pastoral operas in the 1730s and subsequent focus on oratorios have often confused critics and scholars attempting to understand these developments through the framework of neoclassical dramatic theory then en vogue on the Continent Harris teases out a family of distinct national pastoral conventions and convincingly argues that Handel s adoption of these conventions in the 1730s after his decade long engagement with opere serie was spurred by the highly competitive world of London music drama nevertheless the book is weakened by the author s reliance in several cases on lost scores her dubious characterization of the eighteenth century Italian pastoral and the omission of French traditions from her national style analysis traditions which would certainly have influenced opera in 1690s Hamburg 0193152363