Business Today February 11, 2018

Handel's 1738 opera Serse (Xerxes) baffled audiences at first hearing with its mixture of tragedy and comedy, but that same mixture has resulted in the opera's steadily rising status in performance today. If you're maxed out on athletic opera seria performances, check it out: it has elements of a put-on of that genre. The plot is kicked off by Serse, the king of ancient Persia, praising a shade tree in the famous aria "Ombra mai fu," whose tune is also known as Handel. The role of Serse is written for a male countertenor (originally the castrato Caffarelli), who has to keep a level of seriousness as his character becomes involved in increasingly improbably romantic triangles.

Roland Wilson enjoys great esteem as a trumpeter and a cornett player who performs with his own ensemble, and as a musicologist his name stands for the rediscovery of many an early music rarity. On CPO's new recording we hear two highly interesting works that once were (and today still are) ascribed to George Frideric Handel. Johann Mattheson, who was working on the setting of the same libretto in 1723, wrote a detailed review of this Passion probably first performed in 1704 and published anonymously. Although Mattheson does not mention the 'world-famous' man by name, his choice of words repeatedly offers clear references, for example, when he states that the inscription Pilate had put on the cross caused him 'new business' ('neue Händel').

Animals 2018 Remix - The iconic 1977 Pink Floyd album has been remixed for the first time by James Guthrie. Animals is a concept album, focusing on the social-political conditions of mid-1970s Britain, and was a change from the style of the band's earlier work. The album was developed from a collection of unrelated songs into a concept which describes the apparent social and moral decay of society, likening the human condition to that of animals. Taking inspiration from George Orwell's Animal Farm, the album depicts the different classes of people as animals with pigs being at the top of the social chain, dropping down to the sheep as the mindless herd following what they are told, with dogs as the business bosses getting fat on the money and power they hold over the other. Although it's been a long time since 1977, the narrative of the album still resonates today as our social and economic situation mirrors that of the time.