It's unlikely one ever buys a record for the recitative, it would be like reading a novel for the punctuation, and so although if you are following the story you need it, we aren't glorious here until track 2, Ah! Crudele in Armida Abbandonata. As Robert King points out in his notes, Handel had a specialism writing for women 'in distress'.
This is relatively early Handel, in Italy, where he went, already as a young virtuoso, to steep himself in the Italian style of opera, who had invented it, where Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti provided models to learn from. And that's why he doesn't somehow sound German, like Bach, although it could also be the Italian texts he is setting before moving to London.
The spare orchestration, with solo violins and plenty of space for the continuo, makes for solitary contemplation without a large group of musicians crowding us out.
Tra le fiamme, Amid the Flames, is more pastoral with its recorders and oboe, reflecting on the fall of Icarus in words by the poet, Pamphili, which might have found more poetry in a better translation than,
For one who is not born a bird,
flying is a miracle,
and falling is the usual outcome.
where I reckon, to fall is customary looks more literal and a shade better. Which is not the point, especially not once we reach the aria Brillava protetto, in Figlio d'alte speranze, with Carolyn's vocal gymnastics impressively in concert with a spritely violin.
But in Agrippina condotta a morire, one wonders if her generous, sumptuous voice is best cast in the role of the strident, raging Agrippina. Barbara Hannigan now or Maria Callas before be more suited to passionate agitation better but I am only raising any point I can think of to put up against what was always going to be a complete success because the people involved here, all of them, never deliver anything less. And, of course, once Agrippina becomes resigned and regretful, nobody does it better.
The reason not to listen to such things all the time is that there are other things to listen to. For example, I was thrilled that The Early Music Show was recently devoted to Francois Couperin's Lecons de Tenebres. Then Gramaphone arrives and surveys all available recordings (slightly devastated to find Bowman and Chance passed over for honours and another of my favourite recordings dismissed a bit easily), but then Couperin is Composer of the Week and Building a Library is to survey the Lecons, too. What's going on. Hey, you lot, Get off of my Cloud.
Oh, I see, Couperin would have been 350 this week, had he lived.
That's alright, then. We can be left to our own devices once the occasion's over, and fill in with as much Handel, Bach and Carolyn as we like in the spaces in between.
