Philharmonia Baroque, Nicholas Mcgegan

In a stunning world premiere recording, music director and conductor Nicholas McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, and an international cast of French Baroque opera stars present Jean-Philippe Rameau’s original 1745 version of Le Temple de la Gloire, with libretto by Voltaire. Presented as a fully staged opera in April 2017, the three sold out performances enjoyed universal critical acclaim from some of the world’s leading publications.

Apollo and Dafne tells the story of the nymph that gets turned into a laurel tree as a means of expiating her grief over the death of her lover. Strauss set the story as one of his late operas, and here you get the same deal in a third of the time. Nicholas McGegan's direction of this charming cantata keeps the story hopping along, the two protagonists sing well, and the music is delightful.

The Masque of Alfred - apart of course from its finale "Rule Britannia" - has in the 1990s reached CD. Just two years ago a version was issued with the BBC Music Magazine and now we have this more complete account (though there were several variants in Arne's own day) from Nicholas McGegan, an experienced exponent of 18th Century music, recorded in America and using mainly American performers. And very welcome is it. If offers 76 minutes of music, 25 minutes more than the BBC CD and if the OAE's playing on the latter under Nicholas Kraemer often seems rather superior, the Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra are fully equal to Arne's demands which include often atmospheric parts for oboes, horns and flute as well as the basic strings. McGegan uses only four solo singers against the BBC's six.

HENRY PURCELL'S chamber opera, "Dido and Aeneas," is plentifully represented on disk, but Nicholas McGegan's new recording, with the Philharmonia Baroque and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge is the freshest and most compelling since Andrew Parrott's magnificent account of 1981 (on Chandos). Mr. McGegan's soloists – Lorraine Hunt as Dido, Lisa Saffer as Belinda and Michael Dean as Aeneas – work wonders with the concise characterizations provided by Purcell and his librettist, Nahum Tate.

George Frideric Handel lavished particular attention on the contralto or mezzo-soprano roles in his operas and oratorios throughout the years. What better way to celebrate the lush arias that Handel composed for his contralto stars than with Avery Amereau—described by The New York Times as "an extraordinary American alto on the rise"—alongside Handelian scholar Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Featuring virtuosic, passionate, stirring arias throughout Handel's composing career—from his early Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708) to his later Alcina (1735)—this recording brings to life the incredible music once sung by Nicolini, Senesino, and Carestini. This debut album by Amereau marks the last recording of Nicholas McGegan at the helm of PBO.

Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra's account of Handel's three Water Musick Suites is as light, as lively, as grand, and as thoroughly enjoyable as any recording of the works ever made. Performed here on period instruments and in a historically informed manner, the playing here is amazingly expert and astoundingly experienced. There are no flubs from the trumpets, bleats from the horn, squawks from the woodwinds, or scrapes from the strings. Instead, every note is exactly where it should be doing exactly what it should do: providing infectiously melodic and irresistibly rhythmic performances of these well-loved works. McGegan's direction stresses the brilliance and beauty of the music by clarifying textures, polishing the colors, and bringing out the big tunes.

Although La resurrezione, composed in Rome in 1708, pre-dates Handel’s more familiar English oratorios by many years, it’s a tremendously vibrant and dramatically compelling score that deserves much wider currency. Certainly Nicholas McGegan’s energetically delivered and beautifully sung performance serves the music to its best advantage.

Here is Vivaldi-playing with a commendably light, athletic touch. It's so easy to make a meal out of his orchestral tuttis yet these performances inspire the music with expressive delicacy and rhythmic vitality. The programme is a colourful one of concertos for a variety of instruments, wind and strings, in various combinations.

…Meredith Hall, eine bildhübsche kanadische Sopranistin mit herrlicher Stimme und ausserordentlicher Bühnenpräsenz, war eine Partenope, wie sie im Buche steht. Ihr nahm man jede Äusserung und jede Aktion ab, sei es als furchtlose Regentin, als ständig umworbene, aber stets treu zu ihrem Liebhaber stehende Frau, oder als von Arsace arglistig getäuschte Geliebte.

By the eighteenth century, Palermo-born Alessandro Scarlatti was the most widely performed Italian composer of vocal music having written more than sixty operas and well over a hundred cantatas. The cantata, more concentrated than opera, was considered at that time as the higher artistic form. Scarlatti was extremely prolific and many of his works including cantatas still remain unrecorded.