https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0915-5490
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George Kennaway, Austro-German music from Pisendel to Schubert, Early Music, Volume 51, Issue 3, August 2023, Pages 477–480, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/caad028
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Extract
These recordings feature Austro-German (if Handel is included—here he writes for Rome and London) repertory in a wide variety of genres from solo violin music to symphonies. The English Concert under Harry Bicket with singers Sophie Bevan, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies, Hugo Hymas and Ashley Riches (Linn ckd658, rec 2021) give us Handel’s Lenten oratorio La resurrezione hwv47, written for his Roman patron Francesco Ruspoli in 1708. It may have been for performance during Lent, but there was no self-denial; David Vickers’s illuminating liner notes tell us that it cost roughly £90,000 in modern terms. Bicket also contributes a useful short essay on voice-types and roles, beginning with the amusing question ‘How many oratorios begin with a verbal altercation between an Angel and Lucifer?’ There is much to enjoy here. The opening Sonata is delightful, with beautifully played violin, oboe and cello solos. Ashley Riches (Lucifer) relishes every defiant utterance. His dramatic ‘O voi, dall’Erebo’ when he threatens Heaven with thunderbolts, is emphatic but not over-aspirated. His final recitative, while delivering the expected word-painting on ‘profondo’, is nonetheless almost touching as he finally retreats in defeat. One might think that musically Handel was of the devil’s party, as Blake said of Milton, were it not for the other beautiful performances here. Sophie Bevan’s (Mary Magdalen) pastoral-sounding ‘Ferma l’ali’ over a pedal bass, with a middle section notable for its chordal continuo on the cello, is very touching. John the Evangelist’s ‘Cosi la tortorella’ lilts its somewhat naïve message of reassurance (like the dove’s mate, Jesus will return) exquisitely in Hugo Hymas’s performance, and his aria ‘Ecco il sol’ really does bestow sunshine on the earth, represented by the continuo ostinato. Iestyn Davies (Cleophas) sails effortlessly over a tide of running semiquavers in ‘Naufragando va per l’onde’. Lucy Crowe’s role as the Angel is perhaps the least dramatic, in that she mostly deals in certainty, but her aria ‘Se per colpa di donna infelice’ is one of the most difficult in the oratorio, highly exposed over a simple continuo line; it is one of the recording’s high points. La resurrezione has been recorded by others, most recently by Emmanuel Haïm (Erato 6945670, rec 2009), but Bicket’s version easily—unsurprisingly given these fine singers and players—withstands comparison, bringing a charming freshness to this early work.
