Händel goes Wild Christina Pluhar

• Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759):
• 1 Sinfonia (From Alcina, HWV 34) [Arr. Pluhar] 05:01
• 2 "Venti, turbini" (From Rinaldo, HWV 7b) [Arr. Pluhar] 05:40
• 3 "O sleep, why dost thou leave me" (From Semele, HWV 58) [Arr. Pluhar] 03:07
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741):
• 4 Improvisation on Concerto for Strings in G Minor, RV 157: I. Allegro (Arr. Pluhar) 04:14
• Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759):
• 5 "Cara sposa" (From Rinaldo, HWV 7b) 09:30
• 6 Semele, "Where'er you walk" (From Semele, HWV 58) [Arr. Pluhar] 03:37
• 7 Sinfonia, "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" (From Solomon, HWV 67) [Arr. Pluhar] 04:09
• 8 "Pena tiranna" (From Amadigi di Gaula, HWV 11) [Arr. Pluhar] 06:36
• 9 "Piangerò la sorte mia" (From Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17) [Arr. Pluhar] 05:37
• Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger (1580 - 1651):
• 10 Canario (Arr. Pluhar) 04:54
• Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759):
• 11 "Verdi prati" (From Alcina, HWV 34) [Arr. Pluhar] 03:45
• 12 "Tu del Ciel ministro eletto" (From Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità, HWV 46b) [Arr. Pluhar] 03:48
• 13 "Mi lusinga il dolce affetto" (From Alcina, HWV 34) 06:38
• 14 Improvisation on "Lascia ch'io pianga" (From Rinaldo, HWV 7) [Arr. Duran & Turrisi] 03:48
• 15 "Ombra mai fu" (From Serse, HWV 40) [Arr. Pluhar] 05:02
• Total Runtime 01:15:26

Info for Händel goes Wild

With Händel Goes Wild Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata once again embark on some musical time travel, this time in the company of soprano Nuria Rial, countertenor Valer Sabadus and jazz clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi. The album features sumptuously reimagined versions of some of Handel’s most celebrated operatic arias. “All baroque composers used strict forms,” explains Christina Pluhar, “but those forms would also allow the singers and musicians to improvise and add ornament freely.” Highlighting the composer’s dynamism and temperament, she says: “Handel must have been pretty wild himself.” George Frideric Handel now joins Purcell, Monteverdi and Cavalli on the list of composers who have inspired an album by Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata. The title of this new album refers first and foremost to the imaginative treatment his music receives from L’Arpeggiata, but Christina Pluhar reminds us that “Handel must have been pretty wild himself,” quoting this famous anecdote: “At a rehearsal for his opera Ottone, when the celebrated soprano Francesca Cuzzoni refused to sing the aria ‘Falsa immagine’, he became so furious that he grabbed her round the waist and threatened to throw her out of the window.” Fortunately, the ‘wildness’ on this album is purely pleasurable. Händel Goes Wild is in the beguiling vein of Music For A While – Improvisations on Henry Purcell, released by L’Arpeggiata on Erato in 2014. Praising that album, BBC Music Magazine wrote: “Long experienced in fusing Baroque with jazz-inspired performance styles, L'Arpeggiata's approach breathes new life into the Restoration composer, whose ground basses are akin to riffs, his melodies folk-like in their raw simplicity ... Baroque instruments and a jazz-style combo mix to intriguing effect”

Céline Scheen, soprano
Valer Sabadus, counter-tenor
Gianluigi Trovesi, clarinet
L'Arpeggiata
Christina Pluhar, theorbe & direction

Christina Pluhar
After studying guitar in her home city of Graz, Christina Pluhar graduated in lute with Toyohiko Sato at the Hague Conservatoire. She was awarded with the 'Diplôme Supérieur de Perfectionnement' at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Hopkinson Smith. Then she studied with Mara Galassi at the Scuola Civica di Milano.

In 1992 she won the 1st Prize in the International Old Music Competition of Malmö with the ensemble La Fenice.

She lives in Paris since 1992, where she performs as a soloist and continuo player in prestigious festivals with famous groups such as La Fenice, Concerto Soave, Accordone, Elyma, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Ricercar, Akademia, La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy, Concerto Köln, and in ensembles directed by René Jacobs, Ivor Bolton, Alessandro di Marchi. Her repertoire includes solo and continuo works from the 16th to 18th centuries for Renaissance lute, Baroque guitar, archlute, theorbo and Baroque harp.

Since 1993 she gives master classes at Graz University, as well as baroque harp classes at the Conservatoire of The Hague since 1999.

In 2000 she founded the Arpeggiata ensemble. For ten years Christina and her Ensemble have been recording CDs as La Tarantella, All’Improvviso, Los Impossibles, Teatro d’amore and playing all over Europe.

She devotes a lot of time to the Ensemble L’Arpeggiata, as she is not only conductor and musician on stage, but she builds the programs herself and spends a lot of time doing researches too, necessary preliminary work to L’Arpeggiata’s concerts and CDs.

In 2010, she was celebrating the 10th birthday of the Ensemble she created with numerous concerts in France and Europe.

Booklet for Händel goes Wild