Handel: A Song For Saint Cecilia's Day / Croft, Crowe, Minkowski, Musiciens Du Louvre

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Let's not waste time: get this for soprano Lucy Crowe's voice, for her performance of "What passion cannot Music raise", for her "The soft complaining flute"--and don't forget the glorious "But oh! What art can teach". Okay--just get this for the magnificent Crowe, whose golden, ringing tone and impeccable, uninhibited technique sets Handel's arias ablaze in vibrant, scintillating glory, relegating any recorded competition to second-class status. (Listen to that long-held, stratospheric note in the final chorus, on the words "The trumpet shall be heard on high"--on high, indeed; it seems like Crowe could have sustained it forever!) To sing Handel requires technical ease and comfort, range and unreserved explicatory ability--and in this, and in her complete habitation of the world of Handelian style Lucy Crowe is unsurpassed. Lately it seems that Crowe's presence is ever more common on recordings that prick the ears and spark the question: who is that?

Of course there are many more contributors to this fine recording: tenor Richard Croft is a dynamic and worthy partner to Crowe, and the chorus is simply stunning in its near hyper-energetic renditions of those, well, hyper-energetic choruses, supported in equal measure by the first rate, crisply articulate, unreservedly exuberant orchestra. No question, the spirit of this work is rendered faithfully and reverently by Marc Minkowski and his Grenoble forces. The sound, which has the background-noisy air of a live recording (no indication given) nevertheless hands us the soloists' voices on a shining golden platter--or is it a celestial, harmonious cloud? Never mind: this is Handel at its most wondrous and compelling.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com


Product Description:


  • Catalog Number: V5279


  • UPC: 822186052792


  • Label: Naïve


  • Composer: George Frideric Handel


  • Conductor: Marc Minkowski


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Les Musiciens du Louvre


  • Performer: Anders J. Dahlin, David Bates, Luca Tittoto, Lucy Crowe, Nathalie Stutzmann, Neil Baker, Richard Croft