Today we are looking at a stunning arietta (little aria). This is actually just the A section of a dicapo aria, but for our purposes we ending there. It is incedentally a piece that is listed in the NYSSMA manual for Soprano 1 in F minor… it is not a terribly rangy piece but rather about keeping the tension over a long period and showing legato. You can download the sheet music at artsongcentral however this is in the original key Cminor.
So here are the vitals:
Affanni del pensier
Music GF Handel 1685 – 1759
Text Nicola Francesca Haym 1679-1730
From the opera Ottone, Re di Germania
The aria comes towards the end of the first act and is sung by Princess Teofane who was sung (in her London Premier) by Francesca Cuzzoni more on her in a moment. Princess Teofane is the daughter of Romano, Emperor of East. The action takes place in Rome. So far in the opera we have learned that she is to marry Ottone, whom she has never met, but has a portrait of. There is much scheming on the part of Alberto (son of the late Tyrant of Italy) who welcomes her and pretends to be Ottone, who is naturally delayed by pirates, but on his way to meet her. When she meets Alberto (claiming to be Ottone) she is really confused and distressed because he looks nothing like her picture, which she decides to blame. Alberto keeps pressing his suit and leads her to the marriage ceremony, but this of course gets interrupted with news that the REAL Ottone is here and Alberto runs off to fight him. So that is where she is, totally confused, annoyed, and left at the altar about to be married to the wrong man, and so this being opera she sings:
Affanni del pensier, un sol momento datemi pace almen, e poi tornate.
Agonies of thought, atleast give me a moment of peace, and then return.
That is an ok translation I made, I am not in love with it, and it bears a little looking into. The crux of my displeasure comes in the word Affanni. If you google the piece you will find the title given as “Agonies of thought” which sounds ok in english and so I put it up there, but it doesn’t quite capture the meaning. Looking up the word affanni i first found “preoccupations” but to look at the verb affannare and also affannoso. Affannoso translates to breathlessness, affannare translates to preoccupied, or agitated. I also come to the translation of: to bustle on related words. affonnosamente and we get frantically (when combined with the word to look for (cercare) and breathlessly, or to gasp for breath when we add the word to breath (respirare). So instead of a generic pain, we need to incorporate this idea of her thoughts been raging, frantic and restless, and she is attempting to get one moment of respite in this amazing stressful moment.
For longer concert there is often another section with more florid passages but this is usually just sung in concert and recitals as it goes on for about 6-7 minutes.
Now a word or two about Cuzzoni, the artist who first sang this piece. She was known for her long slow arias. Her crescendo and decrescendos over long phrases and for her moving and emotional tone. When approaching this piece it is important to think about what the composer was going for. He wrote this larghetto aria to bring about these things, to emphasize them. Be sure when you approach this piece that you do the same.
LINKS
http://www.handelhouse.org/handel2009/ottone
http://artsongcentral.com/2007/handel-affanni-del-pensier/
