Handel: Organ Concertos, Vol. 2 / Ghielmi, La Divina Armonia
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HANDEL Organ Concertos: in F, HWV 295, “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”; in A, HWV 196; in d , HWV 304; in g, HWV 310; Oboe Concerto in g, HWV 296; Chaconne in G, HWV 343b • Lorenzo Ghielmi (org); Paolo Grazzi (ob); La Divina Armonia • PASSACAILLE 990 (74:16)
Tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims once described his mercurial colleague Stan Getz as “a nice bunch of guys.” The organ, it seems to me, is a nice bunch of instruments, earth-shattering in large cathedrals, sweet if not exactly intimate in some baroque incarnations. I have for years enjoyed the recordings of these and other Handel organ concertos by Ton Koopman, which I have on LP. They are more stately, and more restrained, than this new recording by Lorenzo Ghielmi, or for that matter, than the celebrated recordings by Trevor Pinnock. Here the organ has a larger sound, and is recorded in a more resonant space with a wider soundstage that allows one, for instance, to imagine the cuckoo and the nightingale in different trees. The effect is less intimate in the lovely Larghetto of the Concerto in F Major, and the Allegro that follows sounds almost aggressive. Others may hear this approach as merely lively, and it is that. Ghielmi plays with a joyous intensity, asking for strong accents from his responsive orchestra. The opening of the Oboe Concerto in G Minor sounds like a series of jabs, and here the oboe, thanks to the engineering, sounds impossibly large. Still, I know of no recording with precisely this collection of works, the Chaconne in G and the oboe concerto in addition to the organ concertos. The performances are fine in their way, if not definitive.
FANFARE: Michael Ullman
Product Description:
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Release Date: November 13, 2012
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Catalog Number: PAS990
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UPC: 5425004849908
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Label: Passacaille
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Number of Discs: 1
Composer: George Frideric Handel
Conductor: Lorenzo Ghielmi
Orchestra/Ensemble: La Divina Armonia
Performer: Lorenzo Ghielmi