The oratorio, La Resurrezione (1708) is considered by many to represent the
summary of George Frederic Handel's Italian compositions. This achievement would
not have been realized without the support of Handel's young and ambitious Roman
patron, Francesco Ruspoli. The money and effort that Ruspoli spent on the staging of
this oratorio confirm that it was planned as the climax for the Easter musical festivities
in 1708.
The preliminary chapters of this thesis present the background to the
presentation of La Resurrezione and include discussions on Handel's presence in
Rome, his relationship with Ruspoli, the role of the Accademia dell' Arcadia, and a
biography of Carlo Capece, the librettist of the oratorio.
Musical issues relating to the oratorio are discussed in chapter four. These
include: manuscript sources, the performers of the work, and Handel's musical
response to Capece's libretto. The use of a buffo bass (and the notion of Lucifer as a
comic character) is traced back to the mid-seventeenth-century.
The focus of chapter five is on the music of La Resurrezione, and on examples
of Handel's subsequent re-use of the music. As well, the stimuli that prompted Handel
to refer to a particular borrowing source are examined. Often a similar dramatic
situation prompted Handel's recollection of a previous source; at other times a comparable textual affect, a similar phrase or even a single word in common provided
the stimulus for borrowing. The five borrowing groupings discussed in the chapter are
chosen because they represent the various means that prompted Handel's recollection
of a previous source. Each grouping is organized by an appropriate term which
reinforces the argument that it is a textual word, phrase or affect that is the key to
understanding the borrowings. A consideration of the borrowings highlights Handel's
great talent for portraying people and varying dramatic situations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/5916 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Cortiula, Adam Anthony |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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