Ton Koopman - Händel: 'Tu Fedel? Tu Costante?' HWV 171a and Other Italian Cantatas (2016)

Sometime in late 1705 or 1706 Georg Friedrich Händel, like many German composers before him, travelled to Italy, then the fountainhead of European music. During the next three years he paid extended visits to Rome and also spent time in Florence, Venice and Naples. In 1709-10, perhaps after a year back in Hamburg, he returned once again to Florence and Venice. Rather than studying with some Italian master, as others had done, he quickly established himself as a virtuoso performer and composer, enjoying the support of leading patrons and composing numerous cantatas.
Lost music from Handel’s years in Italy rarely comes to light. So it was with considerable excitement that in 2015 I found myself looking at a previously unknown and largely different version of the cantata “Tu fedel? tu costante?”, HWV 171 uniquely preserved in a manuscript belonging to Ton Koopman. As so often it was a chance discovery.
“Tu fedel? tu costante?” is the complaint of an injured love. Both Handel settings of this text are for soprano, but in HWV 171a, as presented in the Koopman manuscript, the accompanying ensemble includes an oboe in addition to the two violins and continuo found in HWV 171. Otherwise, except for the absence of the introductory sonata in HWV 171, the new cantata is practically identical with the familiar version up to the end of the first aria. Thereafter it sharply diverges. HWV 171a was probably composed in Venice or Florence sometime prior to Handel’s first
arrival in Rome in late 1706. HWV 171 was completed by May 1707.