HANDEL GOES WILD
L’Arpeggieta / CHRISTINA PLUHAR
Erato 0190295811693 / *****
The music of Georg Frideric Handel
(1685-1759), like his close contemporary J.S.Bach, is ripe for improvisation,
as demonstrated by Austrian baroque music specialist Christina Pluhar and her
period instrument group L’Arpeggiata. This group’s use of jazz and world music
techniques in Pluhar’s arrangements makes it stand out.
Handel’s operatic arias, sung in both
Italian and English, are known for their purity, beauty and often treacherously
virtuosic runs. Countertenor Valer Sabadus and soprano Nuria Rial sing these
straight and without further embellishment, such as in Venti, Turbini
and Cara Sposa (from Rinaldo) and Piangero La Sorte Mia (Giulio
Cesare).
It is however in the instrumentation
that the music takes on a different dimension. Listen to how Gianluigi
Trovesi’s clarinet turns the Sinfonia from Alcina into a Klezmer
dance. Or whoever thought that the familiar Where’er You Walk (Semele)
could be made to sound like a close cousin of Gershwin’s I Got Plenty O’
Nuttin’ (Porgy And Bess)?
The Arrival Of The Queen Of Sheba
(Solomon) gets all jazzed up with Francesco Turrisi on piano, and in Canario,
an improvisation based on Girolamo Kapsberger, percussionist Sergey Saprichev
takes on the idiom of konnakol (Carnatic rhythmic scat singing)
convincingly.
To close, Ombra Mai Fu (Serse), better known as
Handel’s Largo, Doron Sherwin’s cornet paves the way for Sabadus’ moving
plaint. Old and new sit easily in the true spirit of the baroque within this
fascinating album, all 75 minutes of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment