George Frideric Handel

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, HWV 46a
"Un pensiero nemico di pace"

Oratorio in two parts

Libretto by: Benedetto Pamphilj

In this recording:

Cecilia Bartoli
Les Musiciens du Louvre - Grenoble
Marc Minkowski

The Triumph of Time and Truth is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel which has seen three iterations across 50 years of Handel's career. HWV 46a is an Italian oratorio from 1707, in 1737 Handel revised and expanded the oratorio to create HWV 46b, and HWV 71 is the work expanded and revised again, possibly without much involvement at all by Handel, into an English-language oratorio from 1757.

Under the title which translates "The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment" (HWV 46a), Handel composed his very first oratorio to a libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. The work, which consisted of two sections, was composed in the Spring of 1707 and premiered that summer in Rome.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, originally entitled La Bellezza ravveduta nel Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, conjures up the atmosphere of a sophisticated cultural entertainment in the Rome of the cardinals, whose iconography is brought to life in the oratorio's arias and dialogues. In the aria "Un pensiero nemico di pace", in which Bellezza refutes the unequivocal meaning of Time. The first section is energetically compact: unrelenting unison violins and a vocal line alternating precise syllabification with coloratura volleys on key words such as "edace" and "ali" underline the bleak idea of time as a remorsless and destructive phenomenon. By comparison, central section, in which the voice is accompanied by basso continuo alone, is an oasis of serene enchantment, where the inavitability of time's passing seems to vanish.


Original text:

Un pensiero nemico di pace
fece il Tempo volubile edace
e con l'ali la falce gli diè.
Nacque un altro leggiadro pensiero
per negare si rigido impero
on'il Tempo, più Tempo non è.

Translation:

A thought inimical to peace
created inconstant, voracious Time,
Endowing him with both wings and a scythe.
Then was born a second, happy thought,
to parry such a harsh dominion,
in wich Time is no longer Time.

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