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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
There is nothing in music more unstoppably beautiful than a Handel aria moving in slow, regal splendor. It is like a godly machine, crushing all ugliness and plainness in its path. Consider "Ombra mai fu," an ode to a shady tree, from the 1738 opera "Serse." It has a stately tempo marking (Larghetto); a swaying meter of three-quarter time; a hypnotic procession of quarter notes in the bass; and immaculate lyric turns in the upper parts and the solo voice. As Baroque art goes, it is not very baroque. Not a single note is out of place, or seems to have been put there for a decorative purpose. The aria is all structure, as if it were an ideal modern building whose girders are gorgeous in themselves. There is something uncanny about how the segments are joined together. Often, the changing chords of any given bar pivot on a single tone, and this tone is found sometimes in the bass, sometimes in the middle parts, sometimes on top. Like a great river in the sun--the best way to track such music is by a triangulation of metaphors--the aria glitters on the surface and flows powerfully below.
For a long time, the better part of George...
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