Classical Music

A glance at ensemble concert plans, opera and festival programmes and recording catalogues shows that George Frederick Handel's music enjoys enormous and unwavering popularity today. Even during his lifetime, Handel's works could be heard in his homeland as well as in his adoptive country. Following a roaring success as "Caro Sassone" among the Italians his fame spread like wildfire throughout Europe before the composer finally settled among the British in London. This release from Le Petit Concert Baroque presents some of Handel's most famous selections, including several pieces from the opera "Rinaldo," from which this album takes it's title.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Handel’’s one act opera-ballet Terpsichore (1734) is followed by the ballets sequences from his 1735 opera seria, Ariodante. Leading baroque conductor James Richman founded the NYC-based Concert Royal in 1974 and remains its Artistic Director. About soprano Ava Pine: “…perfect balance of passion and intellect…a voice of natural beauty and flexibility” – D Magazine (Dallas, TX) About mezzo Kirsten Sollek: …an appealingly rich alto” – NYTimes; “…elemental tone quality.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Handel Album is the Aulos Ensemble's fifth in a series of critically acclaimed releases for Centaur Records, which include a collection of Christmas music, as well as albums dedicated to Rameau, Telemann and the Bach family. Soprano Dominique Labelle, whose voice has been called "angelic," "silvery," and "vibrant", is noted for her probing explorations of the repertoire from the Baroque to new music. This selection of Handel's masterful operatic arias and other vocal excerpts is interspersed with individual movements from his instrumental Trio Sonata and Concerto masterpieces.

G.F. Handel used material from his composer colleagues, and created his own arrangements of their music. While he arranged countless renditions of his contemporaries' music, he also composed original music of his own. This performance makes us aware of the sheer beauty of this music, which turns into gold in Handel's hands. Whether new or borrowed, these grand concertos are masterfully performed!

Under the title I vanni occulti, ensemble Al Ayre Espanol, led by maestro Eduardo Lopez Banzo offers us it's personal vision of Handel's Sonatas Op. 2. The phrase comes from the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Dillusion, 1707). The reference to this aria is not anecdotal, because Sonata No. 1 in this Op. 2 contains references to this music- an aspect that, hardly surprisingly, constitutes a characteristic element of the composition technique of the maestro from Halle. Over the course of his life, Handel composed 20 trio sonatas, 12 of which were published in London in two different collections: six sonatas were published in 1733 as Op. 2 and another seven printed in 1739 as Op. 5. In a disguised allusion to the vanitas allegory and the fleeting passage of time, Al Ayre Espanol presents, just three years after it's recording of Op. 5, an introspective version of Op. 2, which completes and, at the same time, complements the group's first rendition of Handel's trio sonatas. The two recordings form a single project that offers the listener a passionate and impassioned, southern and Mediterranean version of this exquisite chamber music. This version is marked by the emergence, with particular expressive intensity, of the two aesthetic poles present in the chamber music universe of Handel: the most contained lyricism combined with the most explosive fury.

Classical Music

Classical Music

A new account of the most important published chamber music work by Handel! The experienced, renowned, and awarded ensemble Al Ayre Espa�ol imbues this performance with their usual drive and intensity. Founded in 1988 by conductor Eduardo L�pez Banzo, Al Ayre Espa�ol sought to challenge the pervading clich�s that often surrounded the performance of Spanish baroque music at that time. The spirit of the ensemble has always been to refute these clich�s with musicological rigor and performance excellence, and they strive to give new life to music from the past, thus o pening it up to contemporary audiences.

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 11-17 January 1991 Producer(s) Tim Oldham Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee Peter Sheldon (Assistant)

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 30 January-1 February 1989 Producer(s) Martin Compton Sound Engineer(s) Anthony Howell

Classical Music