HANDEL, G.F.: Cantatas – HWV 105, 112, 113, 173
Winter, Das Kleine Konzert, Max
C71083

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.

This week’s pick from the Capriccio label is lo godo, rido e spero, an aria from Handel’s solo cantata, Un’alma innamorata. Although it’s sung on this recording by a soprano, the text doesn’t allude to the sex of the narrator, but the aria’s sentiment does suggest that if love is spurned, then there are plenty more fish in the sea: “I rejoice, laugh, hope and love more than one heart, and here is why. If one’s thoughts tend to a vagabond love, then go and find out where it is.”