Sophie And Jacob

This release was originally part of a two-disc album of vocal and instrumental pieces by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre issued in 1986. The music by this gifted contemporary of François Couperin is enjoying a renaissance, and justifiably, for it is inventive and affecting. Sopranos Isabelle Poulenard and Sophie Boulin are fluent in the somewhat rarefied idiom of the 'cantate française' and the result is delicately pleasing. Four of the cantatas on the disc are taken from Jacquet's first collection of Cantates françaises sur des sujets tirés de l'écriture, published in 1708, and dedicated to Louis XIV. The fifth work, Jephté, comes from a second collection issued in 1711 and is distinct from the other cantatas on the disc in being written for two voices rather than one.

Handel’s English oratorios, though unstaged, generally remain vividly theatrical. Samson is less operatic, opening with the hero already defeated, blinded and in chains, long after Dalila’s seduction and subsequent treachery. The drama is of the mind rather than of action, with virtually no incidents in Act I, and Act II limited to two encounters, Dalila offering remorse and the giant Harapha mocking the captive.

Dunedin Consort continues to apply its pioneering approach to recordings by releasing two alternative performing versions of one of Handel’s greatest dramatic works, Samson. This is the Full Chorus Version.
This version employs an authentic Handelian chorus, comprising both boy trebles from the Tiffin Boys' Choir and solo sopranos – a sonority largely unheard in the modern age.