A new recording by Il Giardino Armonico is rightly going to attract interest and admiration, especially one that launches a new relationship with the happily resurrected label L’Oiseau-Lyre. Sadly, the inadequate booklet-note pushes the grating spin that these undoubtedly vibrant performances are somehow “reclaiming ‘Handel the Italian’ with performances that director Giovanni Antonini describes as ‘less English’”. It is absurd to suppose that Italians nowadays have a divine right to interpret the musical style of their ancestors better than musicians who hold a British passport (plenty of whom made L’Oiseau- Lyre into a great label for early music). Let’s not forget that Handel wrote his “Twelve Grand Concertos” in 1739 – almost 30 years after he had left Italy – for a publication that was tailored for, subscribed to, and performed by English musicians. Moreover, it is odd to make claims about “a careful study of historical sources”, and draw attention to the reinstatement of Handel’s oboe parts in a few of the concertos, only then to make copious use of a historically implausible triple-harp in the continuo team.

Thankfully, one can overlook the PR baloney and a few of Il Giardino Armonico’s eccentricities, and listen to some generally intoxicating performances of Handel’s most masterful instrumental compositions. The band’s strongly accentuated playing perhaps has a slight advantage in finesse and imagination over L’Arte dei Suonatori’s recent complete set (BIS, 2/09), and much of the credit for the intricate passagework and dynamic excitement must be given to fiddler Enrico Onofri, whose playing sparkles with articulate energy. The plunging interplay between concertino and ripieno groups is exhilarating. The Polonaise in No 3 is astonishingly robust, with its droning bass thrashed out; it certainly brings out the daring brilliance of Handel’s musical imagination, though it seems rather short on the pastoral charm that the composer surely intended. The opening Largo and Allegro of No 5 possess panache and the opening of No 10 is tautly dramatic, but I missed the airy wit that such music may also convey. Il Giardino Armonico’s playing is never clumsy but incisive muscular approaches in contrapuntal movements seem overly severe. It is possible to find a more measured elegance and shapely sentimentality in Handel’s music, but perhaps that would lead to the so-called “Englishness” that L’Oiseau-Lyre and Antonini disparage. The group’s spellbinding mastery of chiaroscuro on its recent Vivaldi cello concertos discs (Naïve, 1/09) is not so evident here. The benchmark versions of Op 6 are those by English violinists Andrew Manze (Academy of Ancient Music) and Simon Standage (Collegium Musicum 90), neither of which is remotely dry or lacking in exuberance. There is plenty of highly spiced food for thought served by Il Giardino Armonico, but please don’t believe the unbalanced hype.