# Collections of Handel arias



## Elgarian

So ... a friend asked me to recommend a collection of Handel arias to buy. It would be easy to recommend a couple of complete operas, but collections of arias are another matter.

These are the ones I have:
































None of them is an immediate standout choice. Magdalena Kozena is marvellous when she's marvellous, but I'm not keen on some of her choices; Sandrine Piau is good, but a bit too 'showy' in terms of technique for my taste. Sarah Connolly is very 'worthy', but never quite sets me on fire.

I'm tempted to recommend Danielle de Niese as the most immediately enjoyable - very much on the pop/rock side of Handel presentations, with the voice maybe too forward in the mix, and lacking in subtlety at times. But she undeniably rocks, and I think that might be what I'll recommend ... unless someone can come up with another suggestion (or suggestions). Anyone out there with a different batch of Handel aria collections to mine?


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## Elgarian

Actually, I've been listening to some of these collections again, so I'll do a bit of 'thinking aloud' about them.

Danielle de Niese hits me between the eyes right from the start with her eye-popping signature, 'Da tempeste' from _Giulio Cesare_, and the whole CD is geared up in that kind of way. There's a place for the Kylie Minogue school of Handel singing, and it's great fun - but it does admittedly get a bit wearing after half an hour. She's full on, all the time, and I find myself looking around for something with a few more delicate shades in it after a while.

Sandrine Piau's disc has been called (in _Gramophone_, I think) the finest collection of Handel arias ever made, or something to that effect; but it doesn't really work for me. Her singing is astonishingly virtuosic; her flights of ornamentation are quite incredibly well-controlled; but I find something a bit cold about it all. There's a great deal to admire in terms of skill, but nothing here gives me goosebumps.

Magdalena Kozena surely gives some of the finest performances I've heard. Her two arias from _Ariodante_ are frankly stupendous; 'Scherza infida' is sung with heart-breaking feeling - expect tears, if you listen to this; and 'Dopo notte' has something of the same kind of air-punching determination to feel good and spread it around that Janet Baker's version has. 'With darkness deep' from _Theodora_ is sung with immense feeling. The way she sings the words 'Your thickest veil around me throw' is like nothing I've ever heard before - as if the boundary between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds has somehow become very thin indeed. And that boundary becomes wafer-thin again several times, for example at about 4.35-ish, when she sings the world 'embosomed'. The CD closes with 'Lascia ch'io pianga', sung with such rediscovered passion that I feel as if I haven't really ever heard it before.

It's quite strange this - there are really only a couple of arias on her CD that I can't get on with - things like 'Where shall I fly' from Hercules; and yet these two or three tracks have dominated my remembered impressions of the CD as a whole. If I were to programme then out, what remains is probably the finest sustained series of Handel arias I could ever hope to hear.

So I think I've answered my own question - Kozena's CD is the one I'll recommend to my friend, unless someone suggests a better. And I'd still love to have further recommendations for my own benefit (or anyone else's).


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## jhar26

You clearly have a preference for the soprano voice, Alan. Same as me really.


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## Elgarian

Oh yes, no question.

Here's Kozena singing 'Dopo notte' and 'Scherza infida'. Have the tissues ready for this last one. Breaks your heart.

And here's the actual recording of the aria I've been obsessed with for days:
'Oh bright sun'/'With darkness deep'

'With darkness deep' starts about 1.48.


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## jhar26

All very beautiful of course. It's literally raining new Handel releases this year. It's never too much when it's this good though.


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## Elgarian

Well, it's been fascinating listening to this. I was drawn to it because of Angelika Kirschlager's memorable performance of Sesto in the Glyndbourne _Giulio Cesare_ (DVD), and having listened to this collection I can see why she was so good in the role. She's quite unlike any of the singers in my 'Handel arias' collection so far; not so rock&roll as Danielle de Niese, not so subtle as Magdelena Kozena, not so flighty as Sandrine Piau; she has an approach all her own, for which words like 'forceful' or 'determined' come to mind. I have the impression of a voice of enormous controlled power. The arias from _Ariodante_ exhibit this particularly, as do (of course) the ones from _Giulio_; and I think I could recommend this unhesitatingly on that basis. It's not the kind of singing that charms; rather, it's the kind of singing that takes no prisoners, that's unanswerable on its own terms. It'll get a lot of listening here.

Here's a reminder of her performance as Sesto in Giulio Cesare - the version on this disc is one of the highlights:

Cara speme


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## Elgarian

Janet Baker's collection of Handel arias (with Raymond Leppard) is now out of print and expensive to buy secondhand, but I was delighted to discover that it's still available as one of the five CDs in this box set. And you can get the whole box for about half the price of the deleted single CD, so there y'go.

After steeping myself for months in more recent Handel recordings with period instruments, it's been really quite strange listening to these arias, recorded in the 1970s with modern instruments. It sounds distinctly old-fashioned. I found I got used to it quite quickly, but at first the recording sounded so much _older_ than it is! I know Janet Baker primarily for her _Sea Pictures_ and _Gerontius_, but these Handel arias are sung magnificently well - 'Scherza Infida' and 'Dopo notte' are nothing short of stupendous. You can hear the Dopo notte recording here.

So the box is easily worth buying for the Handel disc alone; but the good news is that the first disc in the set, devoted to arias by Italian composers of the 17th and 18th centuries (Caccini, Scarlatti, Caldara, and several others I've never heard of), is no less impressive. So you really can't go wrong here, with the sole proviso that, irritatingly, the booklet doesn't contain the texts. It's hard to believe that including a few extra pages would have made a significant difference to the production costs, and for such an important collection as this, it's plain daft.


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## maestrodave

What about Handel arias sung by male voices. Andreas Scholl's collection with the Akedemie fur ALTE MUSIK Berlin on Harmonia Mundi is one that I thoroughly enjoy and is certainly worth consideration. Has anyone heard Philippe Jaroussky sing Vivaldi arias? Just stunning.


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## xJuanx

I just came from a Haendel aria's concert. Concerto Köln + Vivica Genaux . It was a-ma-zing! You would have liked it.


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## xJuanx

maestrodave said:


> What about Handel arias sung by male voices. Andreas Scholl's collection with the Akedemie fur ALTE MUSIK Berlin on Harmonia Mundi is one that I thoroughly enjoy and is certainly worth consideration. Has anyone heard Philippe Jaroussky sing Vivaldi arias? Just stunning.


I heard Philippe Jaroussky singing Vivaldi and it's higly recommendable.


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## Elgarian

xJuanx said:


> I just came from a Haendel aria's concert. Concerto Köln + Vivica Genaux . It was a-ma-zing! You would have liked it.


Glad to hear you had a good evening, and I'm sure you're right that I would! I don't think I've heard Vivica Genaux, though I've encountered her name.


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