Review: Mallon's new recordings with his Canadian period instrument ensemble offers honest, unfussy readings...while the Aradia Ensemble rarely wants for urbanity, warmth and clarity, a...

Review:

Mallon's new recordings with his Canadian period instrument ensemble offers honest, unfussy readings...while the Aradia Ensemble rarely wants for urbanity, warmth and clarity, a certain under-characterisation can merge one concerto into another.

– BBC Music Magazine

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Handel’s Concerti Grossi contain some of the finest orchestral music of the eighteenth century. The Op 6 collection brims with a wealth of variety, colour, and dance rhythms—Polish and Pastoral dances, courtly and fast ones—and Handel’s customary self-borrowings and indeed borrowings from other composers. The combination of full orchestra with a concertino solo group of two violins and cello allows both breadth and intimacy, producing concertos in the fullest sense. On this recording Kevin Mallon incorporates the later oboe parts for Concertos Nos 1, 2, 5 and 6, using them as a model for most of the other concertos. When the oboes are silent, flutes or recorders are added, in line with eighteenth-century practice.