Handel Harnoncourt

Surprising as it may seem, these very distinguished accounts of the Handel Organ Concertos Op. 4 and Op. 7 are now more than 25 years old–yet they’ve more than stood the test of time, and indeed are still virtually unrivalled. Herbert Tachezi’s performances always are fascinating to hear anew: note for example how he constantly stimulates interest with delightful ornamentation of melody lines, and the way he approaches caesuras in the texts with proper attention paid to their structural and harmonic settings. And there are some nicely inventive touches in Tachezi’s subtle use of registrations, quite often dictated by the historical background to individual concertos, most of which are transcriptions. ]

This is one of Handel's most inspired and invigorating works. Relatively short (50 minutes), it is an ode to music itself, with arias and choruses in praise of the attributes of various instruments, from the "trumpet's loud clangor" to the "soft complaining flute", of course featuring solos for those players. It also has one of Handel's most rousing final choruses, depicting the end of the world, when "music shall untune the sky".

This cd contains a rendition of a live concert given november of last year (2012) to commemorate the 200 year anniversary of the "Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" in Vienna. Mr. Harnoncourt conducts, according to the textbook and some online research that I did, a massively expanded Concentus Musicus Wien, the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and soloists Roberta Invernizzi, Werner Gura and Gerald Finley.

It is immediately evident from the Overture that the orchestral sound is going to be rich and ponderous, and, although Harnoncourt works wonders in varying the dynamics and getting the rhythms to dance…the effect is more suggestive of those gigantic mid-Victorian Handel events in the Crystal Palace than anything that Mozart, let alone Handel, could have imagined.

Theodora was Handel's last oratorio but one. He composed this large-scale work in just over a month in the summer of 1749 and it was premiered in March the following year in the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. Only Jephtha was to follow two years later. Handel valued Theodora very highly and stated that the chorus that ends act II, He saw the lovely youth, was the favourite among his own compositions.

The particular strength of the Teldec reissue is its splendid cast, all of whom are technically outstanding, invest their every word with meaning and make recitatives fully alive. The titlerole is in fact one of the smallest, but Tear makes a burly, headstrong king, who handles the scene of the writing on the wall with fine dramatic instinct… Palmer is immensely moving… Esswood, as Daniel, impresses by the beauty of his tone and his command of long phrases; Lehane's brilliantly exuberant ornamentation, apparently improvisatory, marks her as a natural mistress of the style…and van der Bilt shows a rich voice throughout… The Stockholm Chamber Choir is firm-toned and tidy.

what makes this recording so satisfying is the warmth, serenity and pliant lyricism of the performance. We have come to expect fleet tempos from the early-music movement. If anything, Mr. Harnoncourt's tempos, over all, are spacious. The sweet-voiced tenor Michael Schade is given such freedom to shape the phrases of the accompanied recitative "Comfort ye my people," that you listen to these words as if you had never heard them before…The soprano Christine Schäfer and the alto Anna Larsson also do radiant and affecting work. The chorus sings with impressive clarity and full-bodied yet unforced sound…Mr. Harnoncourt adheres to the manuscripts and editions of the work he deems the most reliable, especially with regard to the size of the string ensembles in the various movements.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt The Complete Sony Recordings brings together for the first time Harnoncourt s complete recordings from 2002-2015 with his Concentus Musicus Wien, the Wiener Philharmonike, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Symphonieorchester des Bayrischen Rundfunks. The Sony Classical edition features his famous symphony recordings of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Bruckner, alongside his celebrated performances of great choral works such as the Verdi, Brahms and Mozart Requiems and Haydn's Die Schöpfung, as well as Mozart's opera Zaide, Haydn's Orlando paladino and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Also included are previously authorized but unreleased recordings of J. S. Bach s Cantatas Nos. 26 & 36, Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge and Dvorák's Stabat Mater.