Baroque Chick (and Baroque Chic)

I blogged about it before, 11 years ago in fact: there is rock in baroque. I was thinking about it when I listed to soprano Jeanine de Bique singing L'alma mia fra le tempeste, from Handel's Agrippina. Never seen the opera, but fell in love with this aria right away. It's barock all right. And if there is rock in baroque, it means there's rock chicks and baroque chicks as well. Jeanine de Bique is the latter. In an elegant emerald dress, which makes her performance baroque chic. Did I tell you she was one of my favourite sopranos?

Barock

I once said on Facebook: "There is rock in baroque" to a friend who was into both. Which is very true, and a new great unknown line immortalised on Vraie Fiction. About two years ago, I illustrated this principle with a piece from Rameau that the same friend had uploaded.I wanted to illustrate it again, and I was wondering with what piece of baroque music. And then it struck me: why not more Handel, to remember he composed more than The Messiah? So here is Da Tempeste, from Giulio Cesare, interpreted by, well, Danielle de Niese. I hesitated a lot to have this one, because I find very irritating the way de Niese moves on stage. As in: she moves too much and like a pop star. Someone should remind her sometimes that she is a soprano, not some two bit pop singer.But I forgive her because of her enthusiasm about Handel's music (listen to what she says about it here). Anyway, am I the only one to hear the rock beat? This is pure barock.

Il y a rock dans baroque

C'est un jeu de mot particulièrement vaseux, je sais. C'est aussi un calembour "combien pertinent" à en croire un ami de Facebook. Je m'explique: l'ami en question a mis une Suite de Rameau sur sa page de Facebook, faisant un parallèle entre la musique baroque et le heavy metal. J'ai donc sorti ce calembour, qui n'est peut-être même pas le mien. Je vous laisse juger de sa pertinence en vous laissant écouter le morceau en question, que vous trouverez plus bas.