COMPOSER: George Frideric Handel
COMPOSED: 1711
As one of Handel’s best-loved opera arias, Lascia Ch’io Pianga was too good not to feature in this collection, so we’ve included this arrangement for solo piano. A word of warning about the speed: the melody in minims combined with the tempo indication of largo might encourage you to play the piece much too slowly; imagine the beat as crotchets at a walking pace, and that would be about right. There aren’t usually too many markings or performance indications in Baroque era music like this, and that’s the case here, so feel free to gently shape the music in a way that’s right for you.
The aria itself comes from Rinaldo, the first Italian opera that Handel ever wrote for the London
stage. Staging exotic operas with outlandish plots sung in a language that hardly anyone could understand was something that should never have worked – but, luckily for Handel, it did. The stunning staging had something to do with that, as did of course the beauty of the singing. What’s more, Handel composed all of the music for this one in an incredible two weeks!
In the second act of Rinaldo, the heroine Almirena has been wrenched from her lover’s arms by an evil sorceress, and she finds herself imprisoned in the gardens of an enchanted palace. There, she bemoans her fate in this beautiful aria.