Handel: Convey me to some peaceful shore (Alexander Balus). Amanda Forsythe & Voices of Music 8K

Handel's timeless aria, "Convey me to some peaceful shore" from Alexander Balus HWV 65. 8K video from our award-winning program at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition 2024, Amanda Forsythe, soprano. Handel’s oratorio Alexander Balus premiered in March of 1748. Though not as well-known as his other oratorios, the work has a number of exceptional fine arias. In Convey me to some peaceful shore, Cleopatra Thea (not the famous Cleopatra) is literally singing about moving to another country—as opposed to the hereafter—historically, she went on to rule Syria and marry two more times. This short aria is a model of compositional refinement, and Handel reuses many of the techniques from the aria Tu del ciel in the much earlier oratorio Trionfo del tempo. The libretto is by Thomas Morell, and he relates this remarkable exchange: The next year he (Handel) desired another and I gave him Alexander Balus, which follows the history of the foregoing in the Maccabees … The 3d [Act] begins with an incomparable Air, in the affettuoso style, intermixed with the chorus Recitative that follows it. And as to the last Air, I cannot help telling you, that, when Mr Handell first read it, he cried out Damn your Iambics. ‘Don’t put yourself in a passion, they are easily Trochees.’ Trochees, what are Trochees? ‘Why, the very reverse of Iambics, by leaving out a syllable in every line, as instead of Convey me to some peaceful shore … Lead me to some peaceful shore.’ Text: Cleopatra: Recit: Calm thou my soul, Kind Isis, with a noble scorn of life, Ideal joys, and momentary pains, That flatter or disturb this waking dream. Air: Convey me to some peaceful shore, Where no tumultuous billows roar, Where life, though joyless, still is calm, And sweet content is sorrow's balm. There free from pomp and care, to wait, Forgetting and forgot, the will of fate. Voices of Music Hanneke van Proosdij & David Tayler, directors Musicians (left to right) Baroque violins: Augusta McKay Lodge (concertmaster) Aniela Eddy, Isabelle Seula Lee, Kati Kyme, Linda Quan & Maxine Nemerovski Baroque violas: Maria Caswell & Lisa Grodin Baroque organ: Katherine Heater Baroque cellos: Elisabeth Reed & WIlliam Skeen Violone: Farley Pearce Harpsichord: Hanneke van Proosdij Archlute: David Tayler Special thanks to the San Francisco Early Music Society for making this dream gig possible: www.sfems.org Audio engineer and ambisonics design: Boby Borisov Video: Lloyd Hryciw & Rob Clevenger 8K technology: David Tayler Post production: David Tayler & Andrew Levy Produced by David Tayler & Hanneke van Proosdij Audio mastering, video cutting and final 8K color and render: David Tayler #handel 0:00 Recit acc. Calm thou my soul 1:00 Aria: Convey me to some peaceful shore