Cesare Handel

After their acclaimed recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, La Nuova Musica and David Bates expand their PENTATONE discography with Handel’s Unsung Heroes, in which the instrumentalists of Handel’s operas are put centre stage. Traditionally restricted to an “invisible” existence in the orchestra pit, La Nuova Musica’s obbligato instrumentalists – violinist Thomas Gould, oboist Leo Duarte and bassoonist Joe Qiu – are now in the limelight. They will stand as equal partners alongside a world-class line up of soloists – soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice and countertenor Iestyn Davies – showing how Handel wrote music as virtuosic and lyrical for his unsung heroes as for their singing counterparts.

"I realise that the decision to extract arias by George Frideric Handel from their functional surroundings will raise eyebrows in certain musical quarters. And I can well understand why. This is, after all, a sort of “best of” album, a collection of my personal favourite works by Handel. Moreover, they’re played on a piano. It’s my belief that the world of baroque opera is alien to us today. I must also confess that it’s hard for me to listen to a complete Handel opera or oratorio en gros. Yet I’m fully convinced that some arias, when “extracted”, can deliver their impact and unfold their aura even without the original emotional backdrop. Perhaps precisely on a piano, which basically remains an abstract instrument and, absent the words, necessarily places the focus on the music. In recent years I’ve been seized by a great attraction to Handel’s music. Especially since becoming a father, I’ve felt a growing urge to write my own music and to further develop my own ideas. Handel seems just the right godfather. Where Bach’s music has become a musical primer to us pianists – and rightly so – Handel’s music increasingly appears to me like a sort of primordial bedrock. His music is a goad to try one’s own hand…"

Handel: Opera Seria is the third solo recital disc to come from soprano Sandrine Piau on Naïve Classique. In this instance, Piau is taking on the opera arias of ye big, bald, and perpetually peruked master of musicke, George Frideric Handel. Here Piau receives the sumptuous support of Les Talens Lyriques, led with expertise and good tempo choices by Christophe Rousset, so this setting invites nothing of the controversy sparked by the clunky Érard piano employed by Jos van Immerseel in Piau's previous offering of Debussy: Mélodies.

The castrato in Italian opera of the early 18th century had vocal power that was often associated with heroic roles, but Handel wrote several memorable villains for the voice type as well. Indeed, using the castrato's star quality to add depth to his bad guys was one facet of his operatic genius, and the idea of collecting a group of these arias is good enough to recommend this album even apart from the vocal gifts of Spanish countertenor Xavier Sabata. And those gifts are considerable. Sabata is a true operatic countertenor, somewhat in the vein of Philippe Jaroussky (to whose album of Vivaldi heroic arias this release makes a fine companion).

No more making allowances for countertenors–now the best of the breed have voices as rich and as varied as those of any other range. Exhibit A: Gramophone cover boy Andreas Scholl...

Compact disc buyers who purchased Andreas Scholl's disc of Handel arias on Harmonia Mundi barely a month before HEROES was released may wonder why they might need the present recital, with its further helping of Handel. One listen will stop the wondering! The key is the non-Handel portion of the program. That Scholl is excellent in baroque music is well-established by his recordings for Harmonia Mundi. But with selections by Hasse, Gluck, and a young Mozart, he demonstrates his talent for later music as well.

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.

Tragedy and androgyny…are things Mijanovic aspires to in spades. Her voice is very masculine, almost baritonal. It sends shivers down your spine, until you get to those momentary lapses in intonation that throw you off balance.

— The Guardian

Countertenor Derek Lee Ragin is somewhat better known for his portrayals on the operatic stage than for the many concerts he has appeared in. His repertory is amazingly broad, encompassing works by Baroque composers – Handel, in particular – as well as twentieth century ones, like Benjamin Britten and György Ligeti.
His career as a singer flourished quickly, with an official operatic debut in 1983 at the Innsbruck Festwoche der Alten Musik in Cesti's Il Tito. After vocal study in Amsterdam he won first prize in the ARD International Music Competition (1986). Two years later he debuted at the Met singing Nirenus in Handel's Giulio Cesare.