Handel Penseroso

American ensemble, Banchetto Musicale, under the direction of Martin Pearlman, recorded Handel's ''Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed il Moderato,'' (Arabesque 6554-2, two LP's) set to two poems by the young John Milton with a third, markedly less distinguished, text by Charles Jennens rounding out the work. Banchetto Musicale is a Boston-based group that plays early music on original instruments. Their playing is stylish, if occasionally a little too self-consciously ''correct'' and considered for this taste; the Puritan spirit dies hard. The recording is distinguished by the contributions of some bright young soloists - the sopranos Nancy Armstrong and Sharon Baker, the mezzo-soprano Mary Westbrook-Geha, the tenor Frank Kelley and the baritone James Maddalena; Mr. Pearlman has provided succinct, intelligent notes.

'L'Allegro il penseroso ed il moderato' brings together Sir David Willcocks, some fluent chamber players and the illustrious tenor Peter Pears - not the most orthodox of Handel interpreters in an era of so-called authentic performance, but here appropriately sonorous. The greater feast, however, is the 'Ode for St Cecelia', whose spiritual patronage of the sonic arts first really took off in the seventeenth century and has not looked back since. April Cantelo and Choir of King's College Cambridge offer an inspired and inspiring account of a rich, celebratory and gorgeously double-rhythmed delight.

Following in their series of Gramophone Award and BBC Music Magazine Award winning recordings, Gabrieli’s first Handel recording in over a decade is particularly special – recreating in painstaking detail the very first performance of L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, given in 1740, with additional instrumental repertoire including a Handel organ concerto and two concerti grossi. With a reputation as peerless Handelians, Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort & players bring meticulous research to every performance and recording project, and are joined on this disc by a stunning selection of soloists.

As well as recording for, and eventually publicly falling out with, Deutsche Grammophon, John Eliot Gardiner made a series of recordings for Erato, which Warner Classics are now bundling together at bargain price. Pairing the opera Tamerlano with the joyously exuberant choral setting of Milton (with a disc of ballet music from the operas too) makes no obvious sense, except that both rank among Gardiner's finest Handel performances; and his versions of each (L'Allegro from 1981, Tamerlano from five years later) arguably remain the most recommendable in the current catalogue. The cast in Tamerlano is led by a pair of outstanding counter tenors, Derek Ragin and Michael Chance, then both at the start of their careers, with tenor Nigel Robson as Bajazet, while the soloists in L'Allegro include Marie McLaughlin, Jennifer Smith and Martyn Hill; dramatic energy and vitality course through both performances.

After the success of Alexander's Feast, a setting of the much admired ode by John Dryden, it was wondered: would the result be greater still if Handel could be persuaded to set the words of a poet even greater than Dryden? Such were the thoughts of an important group of Handel's friends centred around the philosopher James Harris and including Charles Jennens (later the librettist of Messiah) and the Fourth Earl of Shaftesbury. It was under their influence that Handel came to set the poetry of John Milton, first in L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and later in the oratorio Samson.

The artists on this album, Joanne Lunn, Charles Daniels and Peter Harvey emulate "the portrayal of emotion is at the heart of all music". This "shepherd's ode" by George Frederic Handel illustrates the head-to-head of two contrasting personalities as they are joined by a third, "Il Moderato" who aims to reconcile the dueling characters with soberminded rationality.

One of the best ideas Handel and his colleagues ever had was to make an oratorio out of John Milton's verse–specifically, of Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" ("The Happy Man" and "The Pensive Man"), with the libretto cutting back and forth between the two poems to make a sort of dialogue, and with an added conclusion titled "Il Moderato" ("The Moderate Man"). The resulting work has never been as famous as Messiah, but it has always been a special favorite of Handel lovers. The King's Consort made a fine recording of L'Allegro in 1999; the selling point of the present version (which appeared almost exactly one year later) is the cast of soloists, which includes soprano Lynne Dawson and countertenor David Daniels, both genuine Baroque superstars, and tenor Ian Bostridge, current king of the art song.

Even though it has hardly been performed and rarely recorded “L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato” has to be counted as one of Handel’s most beautiful and musically valuable oratorios. Its lack of popularity is solely due to the complexities of performance and the un-dramatic subject matter. In so doing, Handel bestowed some of his best music upon Charles Jennen’s reworking of John Milton’s text. With this recording, Peter Neumann together with the Cologne Chamber Choir and the Collegium Cartusianum have brought this wonderful work to life, guaranteeing that it will sit proudly amongst the other oratorio works of Handel.

French soprano Sandrine Piau, despite her frequent appearances on Baroque recordings, may not seem a first choice for the sheer athleticism of Handel, but wait until you hear her. Piau substitutes grace, precision, and sheer beauty for brawn, and the results are astonishing. She chooses arias ideally suited to her talents. "Rejoice greatly," from Messiah, is full of spiky flash, and lengthy pieces like "Prophetic raptures swell my breast" (track 12), from Joseph and His Brethren, are beautifully developed, with Piau sliding with impossible smoothness into high notes in the later stages. Passagework in faster pieces is a shower of bright sparks, while in "Sweet bird," from L'allegro, il penseroso, ed il moderato (track 16), you will become deliciously disoriented after a while as to whether it is Piau or one of the instruments providing the bird effects.