Music Book Review: Handel's Bestiary by Donna Leon, With CD of 12 Arias, as Baroque Era Title #1

Bestiaries expose audiences to known and imagined animal life cycles, literary symbolism, moral implications, and natural histories. They find their birth in ancient and medieval times. Specialists give as epitomes:

• the ancient Physiologus (Naturalist) from Alexandria, Egypt (possibly) by Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens,  150?–215?); and
• the medieval Etymologiae (Etymologies) from Spain by Saint Isidore of Seville (Sant’Isidoro di Siviglia, 560?–April 4, 636).

Bestiaries have more recent manifestations with:

• cycles within the fourteenth-century Isabella, Ormesby, Queen Mary, and Tickhill Psalters;
• Fantasia (Imagination) by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452–May 2, 1519); and
• Manual de zoología fantástica (Book of Imaginary Beings) by Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899–June 14, 1986). 

The twenty-first century is host to a bestiary compiled from George Friederic Handel’s (February 23, 1685–April 14, 1759) operas and oratorios. The above-mentioned Baroque composer’s music juxtaposes animals with interpretative contexts of vice and virtue. Handel’s Bestiary therefore knits into seamless illustrative, performance, and textual wholes the following Handelian animals:

• bee, cleverness in Berenice, Regina d’Egitto;
• elephant, challenges in Judas Maccabaeus;
• frogs, crises in Israel in Egypt;
• lion, bravery in Arianna in Creta;
• moth, temptation in Partenope;
• nightingale, elusiveness in Deidamia;
• phoenix, rebirth in Admeto, Re di Tessaglia;
• silver dove, ascents in Theodora;
• snake, poison in Giulio Cesare in Egitto;
• stag, nobility in Ottone, Re di Germania;
• tiger, altruism in Alcina; and
• turtledove, safety in Floridante. 

So Handel’s Bestiary provides culturally enriching, educationally entertaining illustrations, information, and interpretations -- in 12 chapters and through an enclosed 64-minute compact disc -- of each of 12 animals which appear in 12 different eighteenth-century operas, thanks to:

• Atlantic Monthly Press, publishers;
• Alan Curtis, conductor;
• Giulio D’Alessio, producer;
• George Frideric Handel, composer;
• Laurence Heym, recording producer;
• Il Complesso Barocco (Paul Agnew, Alfia Bakieva, Dileno Baldin, Boris Begelman, Isabella Bison, Andrea Bressan, Pier Luigi Ciapparelli, Laura Corolla, Michele Fattori, Karina Gauvin, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani, Ann Hallenberg, Elisa Imbalzano, Catherine Jones, Taka Kitazato, Yaoi Masuda, Francesco Meucci, Ludovico Minasi, Yann Miriel, Daniela Nuzzoli, Andrea Perugi, Riccardo Coelati Rama, Hannes Rux, Dmitry Sinkovsky);
• Donna Leon, author; and
• Michael Sowa, illustrator.  

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Bestiaries present known and fanciful animals: Horse and Rider; ca. 1506-1508 beeswax sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452–May 2, 1519) left captivating studies of horses along with his only surviving equine sculpture.
sculpture authenticated in 1985 by da Vinci expert Carlo Pedretti (born 1928): Jwpetty1951, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_Da_Vinci_Horse_and_Rider.jpg

The Chandos Portrait of Georg Friedrich Händel: ca. 1720 oil on canvas
Portrait, formerly attributed to Sir James Thornhill (July 25, 1675 or 1676–May 4, 1734), is known as Chandos portrait for the musician's great patron, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (January 6, 1673 - August 9, 1744)
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, South East England: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Georg_Friedrich_Händel_3.jpg

Turtledoves (Streptopelia spp) symbolize safety in Georg Friedrich Händel opera, Floridante.
Floridante premiered at King's Theatre in London on December 9, 1721.
The Turtle Dove; oil on canvas by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823 - March 10, 1903): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SophieAnderson_TheTurtleDoveSmall.jpg

Donna Leon's debut installment of her series on Baroque music's contemporaneous creations and inventions honors her favorite composer, Georg Friedrich Händel.
Donna Leon; Monday, November 1, 2010, 12:19: Michiel Hendryckx, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donna_Leon.jpg

Georg Friedrich Händel preceded his insertion of a nightingale in his 1741 opera Deidamia with compositions ca. 1739 duetting a nightingale with a cuckoo (Concerti Grossi Op. 6 No. 9; Organ Concerto No. 13).
singing contest between cuckoo (cuculus) and nightingale (luscinia) judged by donkey (assus) in woodcut by Tobias Stimmer (April 7, 1539-Jan. 4, 1584), whose woodcuts Peter Paul Rubens (June 28,1577-May 30, 1640) described as "a special jewel of our art"
Matthias Holtzwart's Emblematum Tyrocinia (Strasbourg: Bernhard Jobin, 1581): Provenance Online Project (POP), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/58558794@N07/7725720458/

Leon, Donna. 2010. Handel's Bestiary: In Search of Animals in Handel's Operas. Illustrated by Michael Sowa. Music by George Frideric Handel with Alan Curtis Conducting Il Complesso Barocco. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press.