Customer Reviews

Handel: Complete Cantatas, Volume 1

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This is the first edition of a series of original recordings of Handel's complete cantatas by the Dutch budget repackaging label Brilliant, and if this disc is any indication, the whole set promises to be a wonder. The maestro is authentic performance specialist Marco Vitale who, with his group Contrasto Armonico, has already recorded two larger Handel works, "La Resurrezione" and "Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo". All these works come, more or less, from Handel's young, early "Roman" period, when the youthful Saxon composer traveled to the Italian city to first make his fortune. The cantatas here represent a side of Handel many may not have heard--the intimate, small-scale entertainer. The wealthy Roman grandees who employed Handel needed works for their private evening gatherings, and Handel poured them out on demand. Instrumentation is often sparse or nearly non-existent for many of the cantatas, whose subjects were usually love-related (a subject not permitted in open performance by the Church).

So the success of the performance is thrown back almost completely on the singer and the quality of her near- naked voice (many passages here feature accompaniment by just continuo). And this is where the magic comes in. The young Canadian soprano Stefanie True is not merely just up to the task; she shines brilliantly (pun intended). This is an intensely "musical" soprano voice which somehow enlarges the scale of these works. True has been the lead soprano for all of Vitale's Handel works so far, and he has chosen wisely. In over three decades of Handel listening, I can't think of a soprano superior to her--perhaps a handful equal to, but none superior.