Handel

Barthold Heinrich Brockes was an influential German poet who added reflective and descriptive poetry into the texture of his Passion.

Barthold Heinrich Brockes was an influential German poet who added reflective and descriptive poetry into the texture of his Passion. Among several musical settings, the most famous is the one by Handel. This acclaimed staged version transports Handel’s Brockes Passion into the opera house, widening the work’s historical narrative to embrace the creation of the world, bringing a message of human greed and destruction into direct contact with the present day. The Händelfestspielorchester Halle, on period instruments, is conducted by Michael Hofstetter.

Handel’s Ottone, re di Germania is presented here in a new recording by Max Emanuel Cencic and a superb cast, under the baton of George Petrou with Il Pomo d’Oro.

Among Handel's seventeen English oratorios, Theodora (1750) is unique. The story is not taken from the Bible, but is about a Christian martyr. The characteristics of the oratorio are very negative: there is no national triumph and does not end in joy, hero and heroine are dying, the community with which the audience identifies is in mortal danger, and the final chorus is in a minor key.

Handel’s oratorio Solomon is now regarded by its performers and its listeners as one of his greatest compositions. This was not, however, always the case. Solomon was not performed outside of London during Handel’s lifetime, an unusual occurrence during his British career. The work had therefore enjoyed only a limited success, although we may well wonder why, when oratorios sung in English had been so successful until then. Could it have been the obvious lack of theatricality in the libretto, or the public’s growing indifference to the genre? Or was he afraid to alienate the Anglican church, given the rumours of lines with erotic connotations in the first and third acts? Here, Leonardo García Alarcón and his singers and instrumentalists offer us a flamboyant version of the work that would certainly have won over the most hesitant of London listeners in 1749!

Having barely arrived in London, Handel laid the foundations for his unprecedented operatic career in 1711 with the magic opera Rinaldo. In addition to the novel Italian music, the fantastic plot, which exploited all the possibilities of baroque theatre, also met with enthusiasm from the audience: love, anger and passion amid sensational scene changes, fire-breathing monsters, flying dragons and an exotic magical island. The libretto, based on an episode from Torquato Tasso's epic Gerusalemme liberata, which was popular at the time, tells the story of the young crusader Rinaldo, who would much rather marry his beloved Almirena than fight and who must resist the magical arts of the sorceress Armida - who is in love with him - in order to find happiness. Twenty years later, in 1731, Handel fundamentally revised his successful opera once again. This rarely performed version can be heard here on CD for the first time and features an outstanding cast of singers, above all the leading Italian countertenor Filippo Mineccia in the main role and Roberta Mameli and Vivica Genaux as the ladies fighting for him. Marco Angioloni, who also sings Goffredo, conducts the young ensemble Il Groviglio with verve.

Having barely arrived in London, Handel laid the foundations for his unprecedented operatic career in 1711 with the magic opera Rinaldo.

Trevor Pinnock is the founder and former conductor of the English Concert, one of Europe's leading period instrumental and vocal ensembles. He began his career as a harpsichordist and has returned to that field during the latter part of his career.

Raymond Leppard was among the most important and prolific British conductors of the 20th century, identified for many years by his work with the English Chamber Orchestra. He was a scholar and a noted film music composer, and both as scholar and performer, he played a major role in the revival of Baroque music worldwide. Raymond John Leppard was born in London on August 11, 1927, but grew up in Bath. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied viola and harpsichord, the latter an unusual course at the time. While at Trinity College, he conducted choirs and the Cambridge Philharmonic Society, and after graduating in 1952, he gravitated toward conducting.