What style of performance is called for in Mozart's version of Handel's Acis and Galatea? It seems to me that to make proper sense of it we have to forget much of what we know about Handelian style and, rather, think in terms of what Mozart supposed a Handelian style to be. That, I believe, is how Christopher Hogwood approached Acis and Galatea for this recording, treating the music as if it belongs within Mozart's expressive world much more than Handel's. He has not hesitated to make the most of Mozart's re-orchestration. The clarinets, and also the bassoons and horns, far from being treated as a kind of super-continuo team, are allowed the degree of prominence that you might expect in, say, the E flat Piano Concerto, K482, and when Mozart uses them for quite original dramatic strokes, as occasionally he does, Hogwood gives their music full value. His shaping of the music is classical rather than baroque, the lines longer and the phrases more symmetrical, and some modest rallentandos are permitted, in a tasteful manner attuned to late eighteenth-century susceptibilities. The playing is more sustained, more 'on the string', than it would be in a strictly Handelian period performance. Hogwood permits shadings of the musical sense (or 'affect') within a movement in a manner Mozart would have taken for granted but Handel would not have known. He does not follow the usual rhythmic modifications he would apply in a 'straight' performance of the original on the assumption (which is possibly open to question, although his solution is perfectly convincing) that these particular traditions of baroque performance were lost before Mozart's time.
It works wonderfully well. I found this performance infinitely more pleasing than that under Spering which I reviewed recently (Opus 111), not only for these reasons, but also because it is far better played and sung. The admirable period-instrument players of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, assured and relaxed, bring ample vigour to the overture, supported by rich textures, and they play Mozart's very fascinating reworking of the Handel concerto movement (from Op. 6 No. 6), played between the acts, gently and persuasively and with great warmth: the result is not Handel, nor is it Mozart, but it is still very appealing. The Boston chorus are capable and lively (the rhythms of the fast part of ''Wretched lovers'' are specially vital) though they possibly lack the firmness and clarity of line of the best English groups—one should not of course forget that singing Acis in German does create new difficulties over articulation.
The solo team could scarcely be bettered. Lynne Dawson makes a glowing Galatea, that faint grainy touch to her tone adding character without in any way lessening the sensuality or grace—listen to her account of the sublime climax to the work, ''Heart, the seat of soft delight'' (clarinets and bassoons, as well as flutes, deputizing for the original recorders), or, perhaps above all, to ''As when the dove'', with its gently sensuous phrasing and hints of portamento. And that follows a beautifully shaped, elegantly sung ''Love in her eyes sits playing'' from John Mark Ainsley, done with a finely sustained line and in a beguilingly intimate manner. His refined singing, tender but ardent, is another of the constant delights here. So too is the second tenor, Nico van der Meel, whose slender voice is happily suited to Damon's music. Lastly, there is Michael George, who does not exaggerate in Polyphemus's music or overdo the gruffness; he makes his effects musically, and with clever use of the words, often using witty touches of phrasing (especially across the beat, in ''O ruddier than the cherry'')—and there is a fine stride and bounce to ''Cease to beauty to be suing''.
For years I have had reservations about these bastard Handel-Mozart works, as readers of these pages may have noticed. This highly intelligent and musical performance has convinced me that, played and sung in the right interpretative spirit, and with due understanding of their aesthetic background and feeling for the music, they can give uncommon delight. I am grateful to Christopher Hogwood and his colleagues for this and am sure I shall often be returning to this set.'