Solomon is an astonishing masterpiece: each of its three acts portrays a vital aspect of the virtue, wisdom and glory of Solomon’s rule over Israel. Virtue is also inclusive of erotic love between the King and his newly wed Queen (“May no rash intruder” is perhaps Handel’s most tender and sensual choral music). Solomon has three milestone recordings. Sir Thomas Beecham’s 1956 performance (Somm, 10/04) is marred by illogical alterations to the ordering of the music and intrusive re-orchestration (memorably damned by Winton Dean as a “sky-scraper of misapplied industry”). Most of John Eliot Gardiner’s seminal recording (Philips, 12/85R) is beautifully judged, but some tinkering hinders the original scheme. Handel’s architectural genius is only fully revealed on Paul McCreesh’s splendid recording (the first to contain all the music for Handel’s first version of Solomon, and in the right order; Archiv, 3/99), although McCreesh is not at his best in sensual, poetic and sentimental music.

We are still waiting for a Solomon that is ideal from every perspective. Sadly, Joachim Carlos Martini’s well intentioned performance is not a contender. Ewa Wolak sings Solomon’s music with a dark operatic timbre, and Nicola Wemyss provides some shapely singing, but the soloists seldom sound at ease with either language or character. The Junge Kantorei wheeze through Handel’s opulent double choruses, occasionally managing to match the lumbering yet generally adequate orchestra. Sometimes Martini catches the right tone (the tenderly moulded “Will the sun forget to streak” features some lovely oboe playing) but his Naxos series of Handel oratorios is rarely rewarding. At its worst, like here, the results are predominantly dreadful.