giulio cesare - Naxos Music Library

about handel’s tempi
by alan curtis
Since Giulio Cesare has been often performed in recent years, a ‘tradition’ has grown up, as regards
tempo and character, that may be perfectly respectable, but which I have felt need not be respected,
as it may or may not have much to do with Handel’s thoughts. For instance, the openings of his
overtures are considered to be in the ‘French style’ and assumed to be slow and pompous. Actually
the indication ‘Pomposo’ is almost unknown with Handel, and when it occurs in the first aria of Ulisse
in Deidamia, the piece shows no sign of having been intended to be slow. The opening section of his
overtures seldom received a tempo indication from him. Amadigi (where ‘Largo’ is indicated) is an
exception, perhaps because there is a ‘Largo’ section also at the end of the Allegro. Faramondo has
‘Larghetto’, perhaps an indication that the lighter, less ‘grave’ overtures of Handel’s later years are
not as slow as the earlier ones. The second section is usually marked ‘Allegro’ (as in Giulio Cesare),
but can also be ‘Presto’, as in Rodelinda and Floridante. When Handel moved to England, he began to
be more careful, detailed, and frequent with his tempo indications. The subtle ‘andante larghetto’ is
a rubric often found in Handel (and much less often elsewhere). But, curiously, it is totally lacking in
Giulio Cesare, and the numbers are overwhelmingly marked either ‘Allegro’ (twenty-one) or ‘Largo’
(ten); two of them – Sesto’s ‘Svegliatevi’ and Cleopatra’s ‘Piangerò’ – include both. Perhaps he felt
that the text, and especially the dramatic situations, would make the tempi clear, more than in other
operas. In this respect, he was surely right with the final chorus, which few people would want to
take slowly, although there is no tempo indication. With the other piece that lacks a tempo marking,
however, he may have been wrong. ‘Belle dee’, with its dotted opening ritornello, is now usually taken
very slowly and solemnly, hardly in keeping with the entrance of the lecherous Tolomeo in pursuit of
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