Aria: "Non pensi quell' altera" from "Rodelinda" (HWV 19 Appendix 1) for French Horn & Strings

George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (1685 – 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. He was born in Halle, Germany and spent his early life in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera Rinaldo. A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel was appointed music director of an organisation called the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the present day London conservatoire), a company under royal charter to produce Italian operas in London. Handel was not only to compose operas for the company but hire the star singers, supervise the orchestra and musicians, and adapt operas from Italy for London performance. "Rodelinda, regina de' Longobardi" (HWV 19) is an opera seria in three acts composed for the first Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel. The libretto is by Nicola Francesco Haym, based on an earlier libretto by Antonio Salvi. Rodelinda has long been regarded as one of Handel's greatest works. Rodelinda was first performed at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, London, on 13 February 1725. It was produced with the same singers as Tamerlano. There were 14 performances; it was repeated on 18 December 1725, and again on 4 May 1731, a further 16 performances in all, each revival including changes and fresh material. In 1735 and 1736 it was also performed, with only modest success, in Hamburg at the Oper am Gänsemarkt. The first modern production – in heavily altered form – was in Göttingen on 26 June 1920 where it was the first of a series of modern Handel opera revivals produced by the Handel enthusiast Oskar Hagen. The opera reached the US in 1931 and was revived in London in 1939. There was a further London performance in June 1959 by the Handel Opera Society, conducted by Charles Farncombe, with Joan Sutherland and Janet Baker singing a cut text in English. With the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s, Rodelinda continues to be performed at festivals and opera houses. Among other performances, Rodelinda was staged at the Glyndebourne Festival in the UK in 1998, by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2004 and by English National Opera in 2014. The ENO production was revived at the Bolshoi Theatre in 2015. The Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, performed the opera in March 2019, with Lisette Oropesa and Bejun Mehta in the leading roles. The Dutch National Opera staged Rodelinda in January 2020, with Lucy Crowe and Bejun Mehta in the leading roles. Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodelin.... Although originally written for Opera, I created this arrangement of the Aria: "Non pensi quell' altera di vincermi" (Let that proud woman not think of defeating me) from "Rodelinda, regina de' Longobardi" (HWV 19 Appendix 1) for French Horn & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello). Made with MuseScore 4 Sounds.