"Gia Il Sole Dal Gange" - Lively Classical Song by Scarlatti - Sung by Marc Berman, Bass-Baritone (Subtitles).
- 2 years ago
"Gia il Sole Dal Gange" is a renowned song by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725). Indeed, it may be Scarlatti’s best-known and most performed song. (Actually, it is really an opera aria. More on that below.)
Voice teachers often assign "Gia il Sole Dal Gange" to beginning voice students in voice lessons. That is probably because the song's range barely exceeds an octave. But what the piece lacks in range, it more than makes up for in its melodic charm. Indeed, many famous, experienced artists have recorded "Gia Il Sole Dal Gange." These opera singers include Luciano Pavarotti, Cecilia Bartoli, Ramon Vargas, Jose Carreras, Dimitri Hvorostovsky, Beniamino Gigli, and Renato Bruson. Bass-Baritone Marc Berman sings in this recording.
Interestingly, the song first appeared as an aria in Scarlatti's 1680 opera "L’Honestà Negli Amori" (Honesty in the Pursuit of Love). Scarlatti wrote the opera when he was only nineteen!
In the opera, "Gia Il Sole Dal Gange" appears in a somewhat different format. The character Saldino, a pageboy, sings it. The opera is set in Algeria, in North Africa. The pageboy's song is a paean in praise of the rising sun.
The words "gia il sole dal Gange" in Italian literally mean "already from over the Ganges [the sun shines]." The Ganges River in India and Bangladesh lies well to the east of Algiers. “The Ganges” is thus merely used by the song's text as a metaphor for "east."
In sum, , "Gia il Sole Dal Gange" remains an eternally fresh classic. Opera singers and classical vocalists will continue to sing it for as long as they perform the operatic arias of the great composers.
Voice teachers often assign "Gia il Sole Dal Gange" to beginning voice students in voice lessons. That is probably because the song's range barely exceeds an octave. But what the piece lacks in range, it more than makes up for in its melodic charm. Indeed, many famous, experienced artists have recorded "Gia Il Sole Dal Gange." These opera singers include Luciano Pavarotti, Cecilia Bartoli, Ramon Vargas, Jose Carreras, Dimitri Hvorostovsky, Beniamino Gigli, and Renato Bruson. Bass-Baritone Marc Berman sings in this recording.
Interestingly, the song first appeared as an aria in Scarlatti's 1680 opera "L’Honestà Negli Amori" (Honesty in the Pursuit of Love). Scarlatti wrote the opera when he was only nineteen!
In the opera, "Gia Il Sole Dal Gange" appears in a somewhat different format. The character Saldino, a pageboy, sings it. The opera is set in Algeria, in North Africa. The pageboy's song is a paean in praise of the rising sun.
The words "gia il sole dal Gange" in Italian literally mean "already from over the Ganges [the sun shines]." The Ganges River in India and Bangladesh lies well to the east of Algiers. “The Ganges” is thus merely used by the song's text as a metaphor for "east."
In sum, , "Gia il Sole Dal Gange" remains an eternally fresh classic. Opera singers and classical vocalists will continue to sing it for as long as they perform the operatic arias of the great composers.