Ottaviano Tenerani & Il Rossignolo - Handel: Germanico (2011)

Florentine harpsichordist Ottaviano Tenerani and Sony’s imprint Deutsche Harmonia Mundi have become over-excitable about Germanico – a peculiar early-18th-century manuscript now in Florence’s Conservatorio Cherubini. A hand different from the music copyist later misattributed the music to “sig. Hendl”, which means that the CD’s back cover and a sticker extravagantly proclaim this to be “A Genuine Repertoire Sensation!” which “we can assume to be the very first opera based on an Italian libretto to come from the great Baroque composer’s pen”.

Sorry but, in my opinion, no. This nonsense is sadly inevitable from the marketing of a world premiere recording but Tenerani’s exuberant booklet-note is an extraordinary case of naive flimsy whimsy. Without substantial foundation, he claims that his discovery is the first work Handel composed in Italy (allegedly Florence, late 1706) but his arguments would seem to demonstrate a fragile grasp on vital musicological issues. Moreover, Tenerani concludes with effusive gratitude to a host of eminent scholars for their help but he doesn’t say what any of them actually told him, and nor does he explain how (or if) their sage advice informed his conclusions so it’s impossible to draw any specific endorsements from what is a long list of acknowledgements. Nobody responsible seems to have seriously considered alternative hypotheses. The experienced musicological sleuth Carlo Vitali has already published a convincing counter-argument that Germanico is a court serenata (not an opera) probably composed for Vienna in either 1702 or 1704 to celebrate the military victories of the Habsburg Archduke Joseph at the siege of Landau; Vitali also observes that musical techniques that Tenerani ascribes to Handel are entirely consistent with Viennese serenatas upon similar subjects written by Ariosti and Bononcini.

Il Rossignolo’s accomplished performance confirms that Germanico does not contain a whiff of Handel’s authorship. There isn’t a scrap of musical material that Handel “borrowed” in any of his other works (even his slightest Italian-period compositions contain ideas he re-used liberally elsewhere). Highlights include Celio’s “Nuovi raggi e luci nove”, in which a pair of viols interweaves in spellbinding counterpoint to Magnus Staveland’s sensitive singing (the technique is also used in Antonia’s rejoicing “Sorti più belle”), and there is a succession of short arias dispatched masterfully by Sara Mingardo, Maria Grazia Schiavo and Laura Cherici; these all feature finely crafted ritornellos and an attractive variety of instrumental writing. Tellingly, Agrippina’s vivacious “Chi tanto t’adora”, with its chuckling oboes and declamatory vocal line, is identical to an aria from Bononcini’s Il trionfo di Camilla (Naples, 1696) – something unknown or unacknowledged by Tenerani. Several continuo arias accompanied by versatile cello obbligatos prompted me to remember that Bononcini was a respected cellist. Albeit irresponsibly presented to the world, at least Germanico offers some enjoyable musical merits. -- David Vickers