Philharmonia Baroque, Nicholas Mcgegan

"Greer is a highly accomplished player of the natural horn… I find Greer's playing very musicianly: unusually graceful in the phrasing of the quick movements, with gentle, thoughtful playing in K417 and some lovely smooth and clear lines in K495, while the slow movements are all beautifully done—the Romance of K447 refined and graceful, that of K495 often truly poetic with happy details of timing. And there is no shortage of wit in the finales, or of high spirits. Greer improvises his cadenzas: in the first movement of K495 he does, rightly I think, simply a longish flourish, with no reference to the themes of the movement." (Stanley Sadie, Gramophone Magazine)

Sparkling performances of Mozart's piano concertos No.18 and No.19 by keyboard virtuoso Melvyn Tan, "that princeling among fortepianists" (San Francisco Examiner). "Nimble, thoughtful musicianship… a sweet, crystalline tone" - San Francisco Chronicle "Two of the most seductive Mozart performances available" - Chicago Tribune

Nicholas McGegan has been called a “Handel master” by The San Francisco Chronicle and is considered a foremost Handel interpreter throughout the world. So who better to present the rarely performed Joseph and his Brethren than Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale? Handel’s unfairly neglected—yet splendid—oratorio depicts the grandeur of Pharaoh’s court in an intriguing plot of familial conflict and mistaken identity. With a cast of favorites including Diana Moore and Nicholas Phan, Nicholas McGegan and his historically informed Orchestra and Chorale present a lively studio recording of the program that delighted audiences and critics alike.

Nach dieser Produktion könnte man durchaus auf den Gedanken kommen, die Oper müsse eigentlich Teseo in Creta heissen, so beherrschend und überlegen gestaltet Wilke te Brummelstroete die Partie des Teseo! Neben ihrer Fähigkeit, sich dem Stil von Händels Musik anzupassen kommt ihre ungeheure Bühnenpräsenz und Ausdruckskraft, die sie zur alles beherrschenden Figur der Oper werden liess.

This delectable work, premiered in 1721, shows composer Alessandro Scarlatti at his most brilliantly varied. Solo passages are punctuated with choral interjections and vice-versa, an antiphon duet for oboe and the lovely soprano Suzanne Ryden at first seems like one between two singers; Scarlatti fools the ear. Soprano Dominique Labelle brings a grace to her fluent singing in both solo and ensemble passages which manages to be energetic and tender at once. The setting of the Dixit Dominus never rests; a tenor solo is interrupted by the chorus; an intricate soprano-soprano-counter-tenor trio in the "Dominus a dextris" is rendered even more complex by the chorus, which then, in an entirely different meter, nervously jumps its way to the end and then melts into a gentle baritone solo, with long, legato lines.

The recent Glyndbourne staging of this oratorio demonstrated how well it worked as an opera, and this recording by Nicholas McGegan creates a similar dramatic intensity out of the tragic story of oppression and resistance. He finds excellent tempi for the arias, and keeps the recitatives cracking along at a good pace. And though he has a very good ensemble team of soloists, the star of the show is definitely soprano Lorraine Hunt (who, interestingly enough, sang the mezzo role of Irene for Glyndebourne) as Theodora. She uses the rich, throaty quality of her voice to bring out all the terrible pathos of Theodora's plight, while still suggesting that she is a character lit by an inner fire of joy. Unfortunately the acoustic lacks a certain bloom, and this makes the sound world sometimes seem a little flat and dry.

Composed in Rome in 1707, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno is one of Handel’s longer Italian cantatas and, if not quite matching the brilliance of Apollo e Dafne or Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, it remains a thoroughly engaging piece. Nicholas McGegan’s lively 1990 recording captures the music’s air of beguiling insouciance, Lorraine Hunt is in sweetly majestic voice as the capricious shepherdess Clori and there are deft obbligato flourishes from Elizabeth Blumenstock (violin) and Paul O’Dette (archlute). In sum, a delight.

When the German transverse flute found its place in Italy and was accepted by the Catholic church as a suitable replacement for the proscribed recorder, Antonio Vivaldi took to it with great enthusiasm. His flute concertos mark a point of departure, coming after he had completed his 40 bassoon concertos and virtually all of the string concertos. Although some of these pieces were reworkings of material previously composed for recorder, Vivaldi came to capitalize on new techniques he learned from Ignazio Siber, the flute instructor at the Ospedale della Pietà. Of Vivaldi's 15, the 7 flute concertos presented here were freshly written for the instrument.

Judas Maccabaeus (HWV 63) is an oratorio in three acts composed in 1746 by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto written by Thomas Morell. The oratorio was devised as a compliment to the victorious Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland upon his return from the Battle of Culloden (16 April 1746).