Handel

George Frideric Handel - Handel's Memories: A selection from Grand Concertos op. 6
Al Ayre Espanol / Eduardo López Bazo
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 505 MB | Full Artwork: 59 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Challenge Classics # CC72548 | Country/Year: Europe 2012
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…From this background material Handel made something completely new, with rich, unusual sound effects in the strings. Banzo's group Al Ayre Español, which does not at all restrict itself to Spanish music, catches this kind of unusual moment quite vividly. It's a specialist group of the best kind, the kind that aims at general audiences and puts across fairly arcane material by dint of sheer musicality. An ideal choice for those who want to get deeper into how Handel's London audiences heard his music.

Sarah Connolly is an exemplary Handel singer. Her recital is dominated by two roles she's performed at ENO, with arias from Alcina and Ariodante. 'Scherza infida' is an addictive mixture of vocal elegance and poignant desolation, and 'Mi lusingha' is sung with a beautiful simplicity that lacks for nothing in drama or passion. In contrast, the extravagant coloratura in 'Dopo notte' and the robust 'Sta nell'Ircana' capture the virtuoso thrills of heroic joy. In Dejanira's 'Where shall I fly?', she reminds us that taste and subtlety have an important place even in Handel's tormented and emotionally unstable creation. She avoids contrived intensity and allows the quality of the vocal writing to speak for itself.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) is an English chamber orchestra, based in London. John Churchill, then Master of Music at the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Neville Marriner founded the orchestra as "The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields", a small, conductorless string group. The ASMF gave its first concert on 13 November 1959, in the church after which it was named. In 1988, the orchestra dropped the hyphens from its full name.