Apollo

Apollo’s Fire has won critical acclaim and enjoyed Top 10 Billboard Classical chart success with their half-dozen releases on AVIE. Returning to their baroque roots, they offer a selection of works by Handel that showcase the Apollo’s Fire chorus. The centerpiece of the album is the grand Dixit Dominus, written during the composer’s early days in Rome. In a gesture to Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee year, Sorrell has chosen two works written for the monarch’s forbearers: the “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” and “Zadok the Priest.” As a bonus, Sorrell includes “The Lord Shall Reign” from the epic Israel in Egypt.

The group Apollo's Fire, also known as the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, was founded by its present conductor Jeannette Sorrell. Playing on period instruments, the modestly sized ensemble delves into the later end of the repertoire with this Mozart disc on the Avie album. Sorrell makes the curious choice to open the program with the well-known, powerful Symphony 40 in G minor, a work that concludes with such fervor and drama that it would seem more appropriately placed at the conclusion of the disc. Sorrell's vision for Mozart seems to be one of modest intensity and tempo diversity. Neither of the outer movements are noticeably driven or brisk, and the inner movements are likewise unsurprising in their execution.

No need to worry about Apollo 440 turning intelligent in the wake of electronica's growing experimental leanings. Their third album overall, Getting High on Your Own Supply is a ride through sampladelic breakbeat that's just as mad as 1997's Electro Glide in Blue. Seemingly oblivious that even their youngest listeners could spot their samples, Apollo 440 pillage Led Zeppelin and Status Quo (among others), blending styles from trance, ska, hip-hop, dub, and disco with a tossed-off feel that's quite charming. From the breakout single "Stop the Rock" to the unabashed, old-school silliness of "Cold Rock the Mic" and a remix of last year's "Lost in Space" theme which fuses black metal with jungle breakbeats, Getting High on Your Own Supply is another dumb but infectious party album to file alongside Fatboy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby.

Cleveland's phenomenal early music ensemble Apollo's Fire ought to be proud of its 2010 double-disc release of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051, augmented with the Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1052 and 1056, and the reconstructed Violin Concerto, BWV 1052, for this set is quite comparable to other excellent period versions on the market. Led by Jeannette Sorrell from the harpsichord, the group is vibrant and fully engaged in making lively music, so the performances are far from stodgy museum pieces.