By JD88992
09-May-2010

"Streams of pleasure..."  

When two of today's Handel specialists come into the studio with a leading period instruments band, the results are likely to be special--and so it proves here. Though it's hard to tell from their booklet bios how often Rosemary Joshua and Sarah Connolly have sung together, they blend very nicely indeed, and Harry Bicket's English Consort are more than mere accompanists. Selections, alternating between English and Italian, come from operas and oratorios in a variety of moods. Joshua makes some lovely soft sounds at the top of the staff, and Connolly produces her lowest notes without a trace of "honk." Sound is excellent, and all sung texts are included, with translations. My only complaint is that there was surely room on this disc for another duet or two. (Is that being greedy?)
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By BC94747
06-May-2010

Handel duets done right  

For all the Handel aria discs that have flooded the market in the last few years, recordings of duets from the composer’s operas and oratorios are rare. This is partly because Handel wrote so few, by the standards of dramatic music written later in the eighteenth century and beyond - the audiences of Handel’s time favored the virtuosity and improvised ornamentation that a star singer could unleash in solo arias. An opera seria would normally feature one or two duets, and sometimes none at all, though in Handel’s oratorios this convention was somewhat slackened, and the number of ensembles increased.

The disc features duets from Handel’s London operas, as well as from the English oratorios Belshazzar, Solomon, and Theodora. Rosemary Joshua and Sarah Connolly are pleasingly matched, Connolly’s masculine, darkly-hued mezzo offsetting Joshua’s warmly dulcet soprano. I am not especially fond of Connolly’s voice, which can sound cool and slightly world-weary, but she interprets her lines with intelligence and flair. The music itself is heavenly, and smooth and unfussy; direction by Bicket allows it to breathe.
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