The royal and aristocratic courts in the early 18th century appear to have enjoyed an insatiable and surprising need for music based on the amorous intrigues of Arcadian shepherds.  When George Frideric Handel moved to Italy in 1706, he found himself writing semi-mythological and pastoral cantatas by the score, several of which centre on the loves, often unrequited, of the nymph or shepherdess Clori.  In Rome Handel nurtured the most illustrious patronage and it was for the extravagant Marquess Francesco Ruspoli that he composed in 1707 one of his most extended and loveliest cantatas, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno.  Also known by its opening words, Cor fedele, it is nothing less than a comic opera in minature for just three characters – Clori, lovely but fickle, strings along two adoring shepherds, Tirsi and Fileno.  She really doesn’t know which way to turn!  Promises are made, hearts are broken – until in…