Emma Shap

Handel’s music from his early years, in Hamburg and Italy, has a remarkably sure touch, coupled with an exuberant spirit which he seldom matched again.
The Nine German Arias are to texts by Brockes who, preparing a later edition, praised Handel for ‘[setting] them to music in a very special way’. Emma Kirkby expresses with radiant ease and simplicity the confident Pietistic message which runs through them, of God’s goodness reflected in the beauties of nature.

Recordings such as this superb one serve to remind us that though we may think we know the output of the major composers, there are still treasures to be discovered. Works for individual instruments find their way into recital programs but often lie in shadow of the 'big works' for the concert.

…The crystal-clear tone, thoughtful intonation and bright sparkle of this beautiful voice [Emma Kirkby] is unmistakable. The music is not so well known as it ought to be and Anthony Rooley, who accompanies here so tellingly, is adept at promoting lesser-known works.

This beautifully conceived program brings together the complete works for piano duet by three major American composers: Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), Amy Beach (1867-1944) and Samuel Barber (1910-1981).

Alessandro Scarlatti's celebrated Stabat mater was commissioned by a confraternity of aristocrats, the Cavalieri della Vergine dei Dolori, for its annual Lenten service at the Franciscan church of San Luigi in Naples. It remained in use until the confraternity commissioned Pergolesi to compose his famous setting to supplant Scarlatti's old-fashioned music. Both Pergolesi and Scarlatti composed for limited resources, each using two solo voices, two violins and basso continuo. Scarlatti's setting is by no means inferior to Pergolesi's but remains much less familiar, despite several excellent recordings.

This exciting programme is presented by Emma Kirkby and London Baroque, household names in the sphere of 'early music', and certainly no new-comers to th works of Handel. Indeed, when they last joined forces in a Handel programme the website MusicWeb International called the performances ones that 'make one wish that all Handel music making could be of this order', while the reviewer in BBC Music Magazine wrote 'Ive seldom been as moved by a recording, both music and performance'.

During the later years of the seventeenth century in Italy the form of the solo cantata with basso continuo became popular. Extra voices with obbligato instruments were often added to the basic formula, but the alternating pattern of recitative and aria remained more or less constant. the majority of Handel's cantatas date from the first decade of the eighteenth century and, more specifically, to his period in Italy between 1706 and 1710. Three of those in the new issue belong to that period whilst the fourth, Mi palpita il cor, suggests Anthony Hicks—in its version for soprano, oboe and continuo—dates from Handel's first years in England. Only recently have two complete copies of Alpestre monte turned up and this performance is, I believe, the first commercially recorded one.

Emma Kirkby always has been an excellent Handel singer, from her two 1985 recordings–Italian Cantatas with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (L'Oiseau Lyre) and German Arias with Charles Medlam and the London Baroque (EMI)–and 1987's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, again with the London Baroque (Harmonia Mundi) to this new, exemplary program of Latin motets. Kirkby retains a remarkably youthful sound, exhibiting all of her admired agility and intonational accuracy, but with more richness in the lower register than in her younger days.