;)
Am listening to a recording of Handel's Solomon...
Friday, December 30, 2011 at 22:16 Sung by Julian Podger, the Maulbronn Chamber Choir and the Hanoverian Court Orchestra et alii-- it is a rather odd sounding performance, to my ears; not quite sure why. Am only just begun. Solomon's first 'accompagnato' (how that is different from an 'air', I'm ignorant; there appears to be one other in the work, also Solomon's):
Almighty pow'r, who rul'st the earth and skies,
And bade gay order from confusion rise;
Whose gracious hand reliev'd Thy slave distress'd,
With splendour cloath'd me, and with knowledge bless'd;
Thy finish'd temple with Thy presence grace,
And shed Thy heav'nly glories o'er the place.
I don't think that that second phrase has ever caught my ear before. Surely there is a book title there, for someone. How impoverished our language is become!
