Deborah King

‘Deborah contains some of the most glorious music Handel ever wrote. Even if many of the numbers have been recycled from earlier works, the invention is still staggering. Handel devotees can thus amuse themselves spotting the tunes while everyone else can revel in the sumptuous scoring and the sheer vitality and humanity of the piece, all superbly conveyed in Robert King's recording’.

Deborah is one of Handel's earliest oratorios, and it contains a lot of music recycled from other pieces–not that it really matters with Handel, who recycled whole works by other composers into some of his other oratorios. The real reason the piece has never caught on is the plot, in which the heroine lures her enemy into her tent, seduces him (we presume), then nails him to the floor with a tent peg through the brain. OK, so it isn't The Omen, but it's as close as Handel ever got. Fine performance, fun music, disgusting story. That's life. –David Hurwitz

Joachim Carlos Martini is obviously a conscientious and intelligent musician. Like Robert King before him, he opts for the overture used in the 1744 revival, as only a continuo part survives of the original overture. Acknowledging that we cannot be certain of what the first performance did or did not include, he also picks and chooses items from the various editions and texts (among them Chrysander, Bernd Baselt and Robert King himself) available to him.

This budget-price compilation disc brings together twenty favourite tracks from The King’s Consort’s acclaimed Handel recordings. There are movements from recent releases such as ‘The trumpet’s loud clangour’ from An Ode for St Cecilia’s Day plus two tracks released for the first time on Hyperion—‘Largo’ from Concerto Grosso Op 3 No 2 and ‘Let the bright seraphim’ from Handel’s much-loved oratorio Samson.

Johann Kuhnau was one of life’s polymaths—as well as being a composer he trained as a lawyer, spoke several languages, helped found Leipzig’s opera house, theorized about music and even found time to write a novel sending up the shortcomings of the contemporary music scene. Musically he’s the link between Schütz and Bach, but he was alive to many different stylistic traits as this selection of sacred music demonstrates. From the brilliantly brassy opening of Ihr Himmel jubilirt to the restrained intensity of Tristis est anima mea, it’s music invigorated at every turn by The King’s Consort.