We are over-stocked with recordings of this work, as I commented in my December ‘Collection’ article. Anything new needs to have something very special to offer. Of these two, the one emanating from Swiss-Italian radio is the better contender, but be warned: it is playable only on DVD-Audio or DVD-Video players (the mid-price two-CD version was released last year on Arts).

Fasolis and his Lugano forces are obviously well-versed in the detail of current practice in performing Baroque works. The forces employed are more-or-less what Handel originally intended. The approach is light, intimate, rhythmically bouyant – almost to a fault – and both vocal and instrumental lines are constitently clear. Fasolis is too inclined to favour bouncy, almost jerky accents, which tend to exaggerate effects that are evident enough without such under-lining. This kind of interpretation is better exemplified in William Christie’s set. The orchestral playing is exemplary, the choral singing rather less so, because this non-English choir too often seems unaware of the import of what they are singing, so that there is none of the verbal clarity and emphasis heard in the Gardiner and Hickox versions listed above.

Two of the soloists are among the best of what has gone before. Dawson, trumping her own aces on contributions to earlier sets, sings her solos with the ultimate in beauty of tone and thoughtful, confident phrasing, so I was more than happy that she should have been assigned the wholly soprano version of ‘He shall feed his flock’ and the recit and air ‘He was cut off…But thou didst not leave’. She also gains points for the delicacy of her discreet decorations.

The Italian bass Antonio Abete is something of a specialist in repertory. Though his English is not idiomatic, he won my heart by virtue of his strong, firm tone, and imposing delivery, something few British basses provide. He sings the shorter version of ‘Why do the nations’, seldom heard elsewhere. The unsteady, somewhat lacrymose mezzo is not to my liking. The tenor Charles Daniels compensates for a slightly weedy voice by the sensitvity of his word-painting and technical assurance.

The presentation leaves a lot to be desired. We are told there are two discs when there is only one – presumably the CD release information is just being repeated – there are no timings on the disc itself, no search facility, and the booklet tells us nothing of the version being used. But that, of course, does not wholly detract from much pleasurable listening on this finely recorded version.

I can see no purpose whatsoever in the very ordinary Nimbus issue, particularly given the fact that it comes at full price. It is the kind of well-behaved, dull performance, using the Watkins Shaw edition, you would have encountered up and down the country before the reformists and sound-cleaners got going some 25 years ago. The chorus and orchestra are accurate but never inspired, and that applies to their conductor as well, whose approach is lacklustre. Of the soloists, only the countertenor (there is no mezzo) stands out, singing all his music with keen tone and a natural feeling for a phrase. Decorations are hardly an asset when awkwardly delivered on all sides. If you want a version with modern instruments, Rilling is much to be preferred.