Cantata

Cantata is a continuous dramatic work assembled from arias drawn from different operas by George Frideric Handel. Unlike the earlier albums in The Handel Project, it does not begin with the meanings of Handel’s original texts. It relocates the arias within an entirely new dramatic field, allowing their emotional and structural functions to generate another work.

A Contemporary Pasticcio

The work follows the eighteenth-century practice of the pasticcio : an opera or dramatic entertainment assembled from existing musical numbers, often taken from different sources and reorganized around a new context. Here, four Handel arias and an instrumental prologue are arranged as a five-movement cantata. Their original plots disappear, but the dramatic intelligence carried by the music remains.

Dramaturgical Adaptation

Rather than adapting what the original words mean, Cantata adapts what the music does. Each aria was selected for the role it could perform within the larger dramatic architecture: remembrance, endurance, crisis, and continuance. The source music is treated not simply as historical material, but as a dramaturgical structure capable of supporting a new narrative.

Musically, Cantata extends the adaptive approach of the earlier albums while taking greater liberties with its sources. Handel's arias remain the point of departure, but they are often transformed rather than directly quoted, becoming inspirations for new musical settings rooted in contemporary electronica. Only Stille amare remains closely aligned with the original score, preserving a more direct connection to Handel's musical language.

Two Realizations

Cantata was conceived simultaneously as an album and as a theatrical work. The album presents the music alone, leaving the dramatic field open. A staged realization introduces newly written spoken monologues between the movements. These texts function as contemporary recitatives: they advance the situation only far enough to create the conditions from which the next aria emerges. The musical sequence remains unchanged; only the degree of narrative specificity differs.