"Alexander Balus" has a poor reputation that is at least partly undeserved. Although the plot is adapted from Macabees, the title suggests its basis in history. This makes it an anomaly among Handel’s dramatic oratorios, whose sources are usually Greek myth or the Bible. The title also makes it easy to confuse it with one of the operas. What sticks most in memory is that it’s not supposed to be very good, and for that reason I ignored it for a long time while building my Handel collection. When I finally decided to check it out I was pleasantly surprised.
Gerd Wienekamp, the man behind Der Laborant is one half of Rainbow Serpent. Kontakt is a superb album soaked by a great musicality where melodies, as much cadenced as cosmic, evolve on structures in constants evolution. From ambient to rhythmic, with rhythms bordering a sweet morphic techno, Kontakt is making us to listen all the beautiful universe of Rainbow Serpent where the multitude of electronic tones gives an incredible relief to this album where we recognized the signature of Gerd Wienekamp.
Johann Heinrich Rolle belongs to the generation of J. S. Bach’s elder sons. Pipped at the post by C. P. E. Bach as Telemann’s successor in Hamburg, Rolle centred his musical life round Berlin and his native Magdeburg. Recitatives, arias, duets and choruses make up this two-part music drama which is both lyrical and on occasion vividly pictorial in its imagery. A fine performance.