Your Tuneful Voice: Handel Oratorio Arias
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: George Frideric Handel
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Vivat
Magazine Review Date: 03/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 67
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: VIVAT105
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Belshazzar, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
(The) Triumph of Time and Truth, Movement: Mortals think that Time is sleeping |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Esther, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Alexander Balus, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Jephtha, Movement: Overture |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, 'Eternal source of light divine', Movement: Eternal source of light divine |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Solomon, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort Carolyn Sampson, Soprano George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Semele, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
(The) Choice of Hercules, Movement: Yet can I hear that dulcet lay |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Jephtha, Movement: Up the dreadful steep ascending (Hamor) |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Samson, Movement: Overture (Sinfonie) |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Israel in Egypt, Movement: Thou shalt bring them in |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
(The) Triumph of Time and Truth, Movement: On the valleys |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
(The) King's Consort George Frideric Handel, Composer Iestyn Davies, Countertenor |
Author: David Vickers
Davies has recorded three numbers before (‘O sacred oracles of truth’ from Belshazzar, ‘Eternal source of light divine’ from the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne and ‘Yet can I hear that dulcet lay’ from The Choice of Hercules), but these sincerely sung and capably played performances add useful elements to the overall programme, which is unaccurately subtitled ‘Handel Oratorio Arias’ (there are arias from two odes and another from the secular classical drama Semele). Athamaus’s plaintive ‘Your tuneful voice’ elicits expressively nuanced singing from Davies and eloquent violin-playing from leader Kati Debretzeni. I enjoyed hearing some less obvious selections, such as Alexander Balus’s valorous trumpet aria ‘Mighty love now calls to arm’ (adapted from La Resurrezione) and Time’s pastoral-tinged moralistic warning ‘Mortals think that Time is sleeping’ from Handel’s 1757 English rearrangement of his first Roman oratorio, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (although the pulsing recorders might have lilted with a softer legato rather than the clipped rhythmical approach they incline towards here). The King’s Consort’s uncharacteristically dry strings are at the forefront of the close sound recorded in the Menuhin Hall – but Davies’s quick coloratura is dazzling in the final aria, ‘How can I stay when love invites’ (originally for tenor but adapted for Senesino in 1732).
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