Donald Burrows, "Handel's London theatre orchestra", Early Music Vol. 13 no. 3 (August 1985): pp. 349-357.
Burrows, p. 356 mentions the theorbo thus [see other references below that explain this a bit]: "Fougeroux and the 1720 list concour on the participation of a lute-player, though there is little trace of a theorbo in Handel's scores. Presumably the player was given a continuo part and left to operate as seemed most appropriate. A lute or theorbo is named from time to time in Handel's scores from the 1730s, but there is no evidence that either of these were ever employed by him in London after his return from Dublin in 1742." I can find no particular reference to Saul in this article. [Perhaps someone else can.] Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 628, has a table that indicates "Archlute (Theorbo)" in Esther (1732), Athalia, and Saul. In describing the orchestration of Saul, pp. 295-297, Dean includes Theorbo in the list of instruments (p. 295). He also states (p. 295), "[The air] 'Fly, malicious spirit' (88) employs harp, theorbo, and pizzicato violas." Other mentions in the Burrows article [end notes not included here]: pp. 349-340, in describing the orchestra, "early in 1720 at the foundation of the Royal Academy of Music" [p. 349], Burrows writes, "The Academy orchestra is recognisably the same one as the opera orchestra of 1710, though rather more lavish on violins and oboes and including a theorbo as the second continuo instrument." p. 340 includes "Pierre-Jacques Fougeroux's head-count of the orchestra at his visit...in 1728. He describes an orchestra of 24 violins, 3 cellos, 2 double basses, 3 bassoons, occasional flutes, trumpets and horns, and with 2 harpsichords and an archlute for continuo accompaniments. The more unlikely aspects of this list are probably the result of trying to identify the players from a seat in the audience." [Endnote 15 (p. 357) suggests that these numbers for "violins" are suspect.] Gordon J Callon School of Music Acadia University Wolfville Nova Scotia Canada B4P 2R6 http://ace.acadiau.ca/score/site-map.htm -----Original Message----- From: magnus andersson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Fri 3/2/2007 3:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [LUTE] handel's london theatre orchestra Dear lute net, Does anyone out there have the Early Music magazine 13 from 1985? I'm searching for the article about H=E4ndel's orchestra , page 356, where Donald Burrows states that Handel specify theorbo as an instrument for Saul (1739). If someone would be able to give me the quote I'd be most grateful. best wishes/ Magnus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
