Lumi 32

French contralto Delphine Galou has gained attention in opera performances and now with this debut recital album, covers a variety of Italian Baroque music. Much of it is sacred in one way or another, making the biker jacket on the cover just a bit overindulgent for the always innovative Alpha label. But the voice is worth the price of admission in itself: silky and smooth in the lower register, with a metallic edge that sparks into fire higher up.

This set contains 8 operas by Handel in 22 CDs. In many ways, this box is a mix-bag: some of them performed in the "traditional style" with severe cuts, and others in "historically-informed" performances. Selection includes some of the most popular Handel operas and some of the rarely-performed. It's the latter category that one should pay closer attention.

Alessandro Stradella was, along with Henry Purcell and Heinrich von Biber, among the most striking and idiosyncratic composers of the late seventeenth century. He is known principally for his cantatas on sacred subjects such as "La Susanna" and "San Giovanni Battista," which prefigure Handel's oratorios, and from which Handel borrowed freely. Stradella's musical eccentricities were paralleled by his irregular life. A member of the minor nobility, he ran through his inheritance while young, and thereafter supplemented his musical earnings by questionable financial dealings that incurred the anger of influential families.

The set has various virtues in its favor. Richter conducts an orchestra of modern instruments somewhat stolidly, but always with lyrical polish and sumptuous tone, and one can enjoy its lush richness, however anachronistic it may be. Nor are his tempos stereotypically sluggish; many of the sprightlier moments bounce along energetically. The soprano role of Cleopatra is sung by a young Tatiana Troyanos, who later became a celebrated mezzo-soprano (and eventually undertook the title role in stage productions, making her perhaps the first singer in history to undertake the roles of both Cleopatra and Caesar). It’s interesting to hear her in her earlier soprano incarnation. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau makes a valiant baritone effort at Caesar’s alto arias and, while he avoids the woolly grumbling some bass-baritones make of the part, seems less than emotionally committed. His second aria, “L’empio diro, tu sei,” for example, sounds polite and cautious rather than raging and indignant.

Giovanni Maria Legrenzi is no longer the household name it was during the 17th and 18th Centuries. Lengrenzi's shameful neglect by the record industry has been hard to fathom, but this new Divox release of his chamber oratorio «The death of the Repentant Heart» could well launch the much-needed revival for the Venetian master - a composer who took over where Gabrieli and Monteverdi left off. Legrenzi, better known for his operas than his religious works durîng his lifetime (1626-1690), was widely admired (and copied) all over Europe.

A highly prolific composer, Giovanni Legrenzi practised his art in oratorios and other works for the church, as well as in opera and chamber music. In fact he explored all the musical genres of his period, taking over the baton handed on by Gabrieli and Monteverdi, and enjoying an enviable reputation among his contemporaries. Better known during his lifetime (1626-1690) for his operas rather than for his religious music, Legrenzi was widely admired and copied all over Europe.