Down With The King

Though many know it only in a later arrangement for soloists and choruses, Handel wrote this masque for five singers with a small orchestra. Despite the ending (the giant Polyphemus crushes Acis with a rock), the music suggests springtime and young love. There's humor, too: Polyphemus–so big, so dumb, so pleased with himself– is a comic baritone's dream. George doesn't capture all of the role's humor, but he is vocally well-cast. McFadden sometimes pushes her voice into a wobble, but her Galatea is appealing and sweetly sung. Best are Covey-Crump's graceful Damon (the voice of reason) and Ainsley's youthful, high-spirited Acis. (Ainsley also sings the slight but attractive "Look down.") The ensemble numbers are delightful, and Robert King brings the entire thing off splendidly.

Fly, bold rebellion was one of Purcell’s early Welcome Songs, composed for Charles II in 1683. The manuscript gives no indication of the date of the first performance, but it seems evident from the anonymous author of the words that it was written shortly after the discovery of the Rye House Plot, which took place in June 1683. The Ode thus would seem likely to have been performed to celebrate Charles’s return from Windsor to Whitehall at the end of June, or perhaps later in the year on his return to London from Winchester (25 September) or Newmarket (20 October). After the splendid two-part Symphony, the Ode contains the already established selection of choruses, trios and solos, interspersed with Purcell’s deliciously scored string ritornelli.

The King's Singers are one of the best vocal ensembles - in every incarnation they've had. The tone changes with new members, but each regrouping presents itself and the music with integrity and intelligence. This compilation is one of their best. My personal bias is that this kind of music is their forte.

When it comes to the greatest rockin' bluesmen in history, at the top of the electrified traditional list is B.B. King; at the top of the contemporary list is Eric Clapton. Riding with The King brings the two living legends together for an entire album for the first time. When it comes to rockin' blues, Riding With The King is as great as it will ever get…

The King's Singers are one of the best vocal ensembles - in every incarnation they've had. The tone changes with new members, but each regrouping presents itself and the music with integrity and intelligence. This compilation is one of their best. My personal bias is that this kind of music is their forte.

Handel's "nine German arias" (he wrote other arias in German, but this is a discrete group) were written in the mid-1720s, long after the composer left his native Germany for Italy and then booming Great Britain. It is not known why he should have written music in German at that late date, and the pieces have a quietly contented tone that sets them somewhat apart from almost everything else in Handel's oeuvre. The texts are by Hamburg poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes, whose so-called Brockes-Passion had already been set by Handel a decade earlier.

One of the best-kept secrets about Johann Pachelbel is his sacred music, both that he wrote it – his omnipresent Canon in D and imposing output for the organ tends to obscure this point – and that it is of such excellent quality as it is. Little of it has been recorded prior to British label Signum's Pachelbel: Vespers, featuring the commanding talents of the King's Singers and period instrument ensemble Charivari Agréable under the direction of Kah-Ming Ng, and the specific works on this disc have never been recorded by anyone.

Universally hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the legendary B.B. King is without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the last half century…