For the French soprano Élisabeth Duparc, known as ‘La Francesina’, Handel composed no fewer than twelve principal roles in major works - operas and oratorios - written towards the end of his life. She took the title role in Semele, for instance, and the parts of Michal in Saul and Nitocris in Belshazzar. Sophie Junker and the Concert de l’Hostel Dieu pay tribute to her here, through some of her most successful roles as the composer’s muse.

The combination of Neville Marriner and his always sterling evocation of excellence from the Academy of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields offers the perfect accompaniment and support for Malcolm's playing. The late George Malcolm was a brilliantly gifted organist even though his real specialty had always been harpsichord. He always seems to find the lightest most delightful playing to fit the idea of the piece.

Verses in praise of music for St Cecilia's Day were fashionable in the seventeenth century but in poetic inspiration none equalled Dryden's two poems in which he attempts to imitate the effects of music in language. He wrote this one, his Song for St Cecilia's Day, in 1687; it was set to music during the poet's lifetime but not, of course, by Handel whose setting dates from 1739… The highlight of Handel's score for me is, without question, his hauntingly beautiful setting of Dryden's second stanza, ''What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!''. Here, especially, Handel matches a text which Dr Johnson regarded as exhibiting the highest flights of fancy with a tenderly expressive cello obbligato.

Whilst Handel was renowned in his lifetime as a virtuoso organist, his art was based on improvisation. He left no developed oeuvre of keyboard pieces which would give us an idea of his full capabilities as an organist. His organ concertos are actually theatre pieces, developed by Handel to support his oratorio performances. Handel brought in an organ to act as continuo in the choruses and developed the idea of an organ concerto as a way of adding extra novelty. At the oratorios, the audience could not rely on novelty and virtuoso display from the latest Italian singers so Handel’s performances on the organ were a sort of substitute.

Bryn Terfel has it all. His rich, deep baritone voice is capable of navigating the rapids and doing the vocal leaps and cartwheels that Handel routinely demands of his singers, even the ones with big, deep voices that usually move more slowly. He is Welsh, and in his mastery of words–clarity of projection and precise emotional expression–he calls to mind another great Welsh performer, Richard Burton.

In November 1984 Sir Colin Davis conducted a performance of Messiah in Munich which, says the booklet which comes with these records, ''was a revelation to public and performers alike''. The surprising fact is that Messiah was previously almost unknown there. Enthusiasm was such that a recording was quickly organized with the same soloists. At rehearsal Sir Colin told the chorus to forget the B minor Mass; ''this is the world of Italian opera'', and as a result many of the choruses ''dance with a vitality born of freshness and discovery''.

The Brook Street Band join forces with the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and their director Owen Rees, for the first ever pairing on disc of the two settings of the Dixit Dominus by Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel.

Handel Arias is the solo debut of one of the most exciting bass-baritones of today. Expertly advised by Baroque expert, Francesco Lora, Ildebrando fashions his debut album into a panoramic sweep of Italian Handel arias for bass-baritone. Mixing well-known and rare, lyric with highly virtuosic, Ildebrando’s phenomenal Handel shows the versatility and wide range of Handel’s compositions for bass-baritone and the vocal capacity of the singer to master this programme. Undeniably appealing to all voice and Baroque music lovers, this album will excite music lovers well beyond.

Sir Neville Marriner thins out the usual ASMF textures and leads vigorous, stately accounts of both the Water Music Suites and the Music for the Royal Fireworks. The playing is snappy, the feeling of dance-inspired animation just right. This is the ideal compilation, presenting both scores complete; and the sound is open, well balanced, and extremely well defined.

Soprano Francesca Aspromonte and violinist Boris Begelman present an all-Handel programme exploring the vicissitudes of love, together with Arsenale Sonoro. On Un'alma innamorata, Aspromonte urges us to take ownership of our amorous infatuations, rather than blaming it on Cupid's arrows. The programme consists of several worldly cantatas with violino concertante - including the famous Mi palpita il cor and a world premiere recording of S'un di m'appaga la mia crudele - interspersed with instrumental sonatas. The overall chamber-musical approach of Un'alma innamorata increases the emotional impact of the tragic heroines depicted by Aspromonte.Francesca Aspromonte presents her third Pentatone album, after having released Prologue (2018) and Maria & Maddalena (2021). Boris Begelman featured on the latter album, whereas Arsenale Sonoro makes its Pentatone debut.

This 25CD set presents the most famous, iconic and best-loved works from the Baroque Era, works which are part of our common musical heritage and conscience, eternally young and cherished for their charm, beauty and deeply human emotions, shared by audiences all over the world.
Played by specialized Early Music Groups like L’Arte Dell’arco, Musica Amphion, Violini Capricciosi, Musica ad Rhenum and many others.

Conductor Diego Fasolis and his Coro della Radio Svizzera always can be counted on for a very good show, and this one, featuring two well-known if not necessarily top-drawer Handel works, is no exception. The early Dixit Dominus, with its Vivaldian "De torrente in via" movement and other Italian stylistic elements, is appropriately lively and crisply articulated in the fast sections and fully indulgent of the slow passages, allowing us to hear in gorgeous detail the promising signs of Handel's germinating genius.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding.

The young Russian soprano makes her solo debut on Decca with cantatas by Handel, Mozart, Porpora and Vivaldi which showcase her scintillating coloratura, tonal clarity and warmth, and radiant middle register; Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini accompany with panache.

Rodelinda was the first of Handel's operas to be revived in modern times (at Gottingen, in 1920) and the first to be performed in the USA (at Smith College, Northampton. Massachusetts, in 1931), and this summer it adds to its laurels the distinction of being the first Handel opera (as opposed to oratorio) to be staged at Glyndebourne. Composed just after Giulio Cesare and Tamerlano, it must, I think, rank in many people's top half-dozen of the Handel operas, with its complex plot of dynastic intrigue revolving around the powerful, steadfast love of Bertarido (the ousted king of Milan) and his queen Rodelinda: just the kind that unfailingly drew strong music from Handel.