Silete venti
Symphonia: Silete venti
Aria: Dulcis amor, Jesu care
Recitative: O fortunata anima
Aria: Date serta, date flores
Presto: Alleluia
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Handel famously liked to borrow and adapt music from his own earlier works to use in some of his new compositions. Among the richest sources for his borrowings were pieces that he had written during his early apprentice years in Italy: more than 100 Italian cantatas, as well as Latin religious works. Not only do ideas from a few of these works turn up in his motet Silete, venti, but fragments from that motet were further recycled in several even later works.
Silete, venti is one of Handel's most substantial and elaborate Latin motets, but exactly when it was written has been much debated. Its musical style suggests that it is a later, more mature work than the composer's youthful music from Italy. The handwriting in the manuscript and the type of paper used have suggested to scholars that it probably comes from the 1720s, well after Handel was established in England. But why would he then have written a Latin motet of the type that was popular in Italy? He did visit Italy in 1729, but it could also have been written in England for a visiting Italian singer or patron.
The work has an unusual beginning. It starts with a typical French overture, in which a stately opening section is followed by a faster, more contrapuntal music -- but the flurry of fast notes in the orchestra is suddenly interrupted by the soprano soloist, who orders the swirling winds to be silent. The music immediately calms down and settles into a beautiful accompanied recitative. There follow two substantial arias, and the work ends with a brilliant Alleluia, such as one hears in Vivaldi, in Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate and in other motets written for Italian singers.