Hot on the heels of Peter Neumann’s recent version (MDG, 1/09), here is a live recording of Joshua made at last year’s London Handel Festival. There are pros and cons to both performances. The clincher in favour of the London forces is that they convey a sense of a theatrical occasion, notwithstanding the fact it was recorded in St George’s, Hanover Square (Handel wrote most of his oratorios for theatre seasons). The trumpets and horns during the solemn march and splendid opening of “Glory to God!” at the beginning of Part 2 are exhilaratingly clear and focused. The performance of the majestic scene in which Joshua commands the sun to stand still is ideally dramatic. The live recording has some inevitable imperfections, such as a few minor moments of dodgy tuning and hesitations from the string-players (though things soon settle down). The London Handel Singers sound at ease with the contours of Handel’s choral writing, despite an occasional bit of unrefined swelling from the choir’s sopranos.

Laurence Cummings is a superb Handelian conductor with a sure sense of style, pacing and narrative, and he fields an excellent team of young British singers. George Humphreys’s authoritative yet sweet singing of “Shall I in Mamre’s fertile plain” is superb, and Catherine Manley’s “Hark! ’tis the linnet” is ideally supple and affectionate (the accompaniment is beautifully played, with lovely solo contributions from violinist Adrian Butterfield and flautist Katy Bircher). Allan Clayton has a grainier voice than his competitors on disc (Robert King’s John Mark Ainsley and Neumann’s James Gilchrist) but he does a good job of Joshua’s fiendishly tricky solos. I hope to hear much more Handel from these promising singers.