Performance on 3 - Handel Week - Italian Cantatas

Presented by Catherine Bott. The English Concert perform Handel's Italian cantatas at the Foundling Museum, in the picture gallery hung with portraits of the composer. Handel put on fund-raising performances of the Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, which provided homes for abandoned children, and went on to become its governor. The programme begins with an early concerto grosso and the soprano cantata in which a male lover laments the cruelty of the woman he loves. These are followed by the serenata Apollo e Dafne. Apollo woos the nymph Dafne, but although he tries very hard, she resists his advances. He persists, but the attention becomes too much, and she takes irrevocable action. Nuria Rial (soprano) Fulvio Bettini (bass) English Concert Alfredo Bernardini (director/oboe) Handel: Concerto grosso, Op 3 No 2; Cantata Ah! Crudel nel pianto mio; Serenata Apollo e Dafne Followed by a visit to the Foundling Museum Exhibition with Sarah Walker and excerpts from Handel's Keyboard Suites by Laurence Cummings (harpsichord).