Carissimi's Latin oratorios are justly esteemed; they are carefully crafted musical dramas, of considerable expressive force, on a miniature scale. Here, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, making their recording debut, eschew large forces for chamber textures of the sort appropriate to the Lenten gatherings of the archconfraternity of the Most Holy Crucifix (a noble Roman brotherhood) who commissioned the oratorios. The effect is madrigalian rather than Handelian and the text is more sensitively conveyed. The rich continuo resources of the ensemble—chamber organ and double harp, chitarrone, archlute and bass violin—well captured on this recording, effectively point up and characterize the dramatic quality of Carissimi's music.
The performances have been prepared under the capable eye of Graham Dixon whose study of Carissimi was recently published by Oxford University Press. For Jepthe a Frescobaldi organ toccata is used where no opening sinfonia survives. The early seventeenth-century vocal ornamentation is tastefully and artfully performed; more's the pity that the tone and intonation of some of the singers is thin and patchy. However, the soliloquies of Janet Coxwell's daughter of Jephthah, Susan Hemington Jones's first woman in Judicium Salomonis and Peter Harvey's Jonas are powerfully conveyed and John Mark Ainsley illuminates Carissimi's word painting in Judicium Salomonis and Jonas as does Alan Ewing in Jepthe. The expression of grief by the two sopranos and alto in Jepthe, the hysteria of the women in Judicium Salomonis and the reflectiveness projected by the trio of alto, tenor and bass in Jonas stand out. Carissimi's concerto effects between soloists and chorus, particularly in Jepthe, are musical jewels. All three oratorios conclude with masterful choruses: harmonically poignant, contrapuntal and polychoral in effect. In Jonas the chorus also function as a vivid and stirring narrator.
Meridan have produced a most inadequate booklet to accompany the CD. A translation without the Latin is difficult enough to follow without having to resort to one's Compact OED magnifying glass in order to read it. The cover illustration is unidentified.'