La Resurrezione is one of Handel’s most underrated, or at any rate most underperformed, works. Like so much of the music he wrote in Italy – the prime example is of course the Dixit Dominus – it is full of bold and striking new ideas, with melodic lines and basses that do all sorts of unexpected things and orchestration that explores the express-ive power of colour in new ways. Every time I hear it I am startled afresh by this manifestation of a young composer stretching his musical limbs. Marquis Ruspoli, who commissioned it and put it on lavishly in his Roman palace at Easter 1708, must have been delighted.
I think he would have relished much about this performance. Marc Minkowski, as always, directs with plenty of spirit, with light-footed rhythms and on the whole quickish tempos. Sometimes too much so: several of the fast numbers are just a shade too fast for comfort and for the music to be properly articulated (as in the Angel’s first aria and Cleophas’s shipwreck simile aria) – and conversely he occasionally sets a tempo so drawn out in slower numbers (St John’s first aria, Cleophas’s “Piangete”) that the music has too little movement. In short, he over-uses tempo as a device to strengthen the expression and it doesn’t always work.
I also have some doubts about his continuo practices. It is acceptable to use the viola da gamba to supply the harmonies with multiple stopping in appropriate contexts, and in the recitative Minkowski effectively uses different textures for participants in dialogue; but in several arias he inexplicably uses what you might call the ‘Polo style’, with a great big hole in the middle between voice and bass. I find it ugly and unstylish, especially in such a number as St John’s first aria in Part 2, with its busy, repetitive bass, and long for some rich harmonic filling. Still, this is a small point; and if there is some textual justification that has escaped me, that doesn’t make it sound better.
Outstanding among an excellent cast is John Mark Ainsley, who provides a graceful, shapely and sweet-toned St John – listen to how he floats the voice in the aria I have already mentioned, or to his expressive warmth in the lovely G minor piece near the end of Part 1 with flute, viol and theorbo (“Cosi la tortorella”). The Lucifer, Laurent Naouri, is impressive for his taut and strongly focused singing; a lean voice like this is well suited to the diabolical fulminations Handel calls for. A bright and lively Angel is provided by Annick Massis, fluent in the divisions and effective in the wilful lines of “D’amor fu consiglio”. Linda Maguire’s Cleophas is sung with evenness and depth of tone and there is no want of brilliance in the rapid music of the shipwreck aria. As Magdalene, Jennifer Smith excels in the lovely sleep aria in Part 1 (with recorders, viol and muted violins) and again in “Per me gia di morire”, which provides the expressive climax of Part 2, with its wailing flutes and solo violin and viol. All the singers provide some ornamentation in the da capo sections although sometimes their idea of ornamentation is too close to a simple rewriting that is neither ornamental nor an improvement on the original.
Minkowski’s, then, is a vital and appealing account of this fine work although I have to say that it does not seem to me to represent, except in the singing of John Mark Ainsley, a significant improvement on the several admirable earlier recordings.'