Handel’s duets, of which there are generally just one or two in most of his mature operas, are usually placed at climaxes of some sort: when two lovers say their (supposed) last farewells, or when they finally celebrate their reunion. And Handel had a marvellous sense of how to make the sound of two voices – after a long succession of solo arias – richly intermingle to represent an emotional peak, a kind of consummation or fulfilment of what has passed. So listening to a series of them, a succession of fulfilments of events that haven’t actually happened, makes for a slightly strange effect. However, in spite of its title this CD in fact offers only four duets, which occupy a little more than one-third of its total time, with a selection of arias and some instrumental pieces making up the rest.

It is outstandingly well performed, partly through the contribution of Stephen Stubbs, better known as lutenist than conductor, whose beautifully sprung rhythms and sensitive orchestral phrasing animate the whole. The singing is no less distinguished. Suzie LeBlanc’s reading of such an old favourite as ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ brings it freshly to life, with her unaffected expression, her shapely phrasing and beauty of tone. In the Rodelinda aria her moulding of the music again adds to the poignancy of the climactic top notes, while the semiquavers are bright, precise and duly jubilant in Cleopatra’s triumphal final aria from Giulio Cesare.

Daniel Taylor gives a moving account of ‘Cara sposa’, sweet and clear of tone and with some telling messa di voce, and he excels, too, in the purity of his expression of ‘Ombra mai fù’.

And when they sing together the pleasure is more than doubled – both have admirable clarity of articulation, and they know how to make the most of the expressive content, as, for example, in their handling of the dissonances on ‘amara’ (‘bitter’) in the Tolomeo duet, or their quite modest but tasteful ornamentation in the da capo sections where often they echo each other. Listen, too, to their moving account of the elegiac duet in Rodelinda.

Incidentally, the item billed without explanation as ‘Overture HWV337’ is actually HWV337 and 338, three movements probably written around 1722 and never used; Handel drew on it for the overtures in Ottone and Giulio Cesare. The fugal finale is done here with particular spirit.