Egyptian Ornaments

Four-hour, 3-CD overview of the American music scene in 1967. A dazzling cornucopia of psychedelia, garage punk, folk-rock and sunshine pop that acted as the soundtrack to the Summer of Love (US division).

"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.