• Web Content Accessibility
MIT Libraries
Log Out
English
  • English
  • 简体中文
  • 繁體中文
  • 한국어
  • Español
  • Français
  • Deutsch
  • Português
Accessibility
Try new version

The My Account Setting page on NML3 is under development. You will be directed to NML2 to make changes to your account settings.

OK

<iframe frameborder="0" width="600" height="150" src=""> </iframe>

Your session has timed out. Please log in again.

Home > 100 Best Classics > Serse (Xerxes), HWV 40*
Classical Composer: Handel, George Frideric
Lyricist: Minato, Nicolò
Work: Serse (Xerxes), HWV 40*
Year Composed: 1738
Instrumentation:  0.2rec.201/2100/str/cont
Publishers: Edition Kunzelmann
Deutsche Handelgesellschaft
Edwin F. Kalmus
Bärenreiter Verlag
Duration: 02:39:00
Period:  Baroque (1600-1750)
Work Category:  Opera

Work Information

Available Recording(s)

Serse ('Xerxes'), the king of Persia, sings this aria to his favorite plane tree, thanking the plant for giving him shade.

Serse's first aria, although memorably beautiful, sets up the king as a partially comical figure, and prepares the way for the rest of Handel's witty and sly opera.

Handel originally wrote this for a castrato. Nowadays, it is most often performed at the same high pitch by a countertenor or mezzo-soprano. But in the 1920s, when Handel's operas were first rediscovered, leading roles like this were usually given to tenors and basses.

Writer: Warwick Thompson

Recording(s) for Serse (Xerxes), HWV 40*:
No. Catalogue No. Album Title Label Featured Artist

Please wait.

Play Queue

Hide Player

artist;

Naxos | cataId

00:00
00:00
00:00

You are already streaming NML on this computing device.