George Frideric Handel.(Sound Recording Reviews)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)

George Frideric Handel. La Resurrezione. Nancy Argenta; Maria Cristina Kiehr; Marijana Mijanovic; Marcel Reijans; Klaus Mertens; Combattimento Consort Amsterdam/Jan Willem de Vriend. Challenge Classics CC 72120, 2003.

Of Handel's many oratorios, only two are both explicitly Christian and biblical in their themes: the Messiah and the Oratorio per la Resurrezione del Nostro Signor Gesu Cristo. The latter is an unusually large-scale composition for Handel, requiring significant instrumental forces (though no chorus is used). Although La Resurrezione had a successful concert run in 1708, the score was not published until 1796, and then in an inaccurately edited version; it was not revived for the concert stage until halfway through the twentieth century. After 1708, Handel used the work mainly as a source of musical material for other compositions. Carlo Sigismondo Capece's libretto is quite dark, dealing as it does with the New Testament's account of Christ's three days in purgatory; indeed, Satan himself (sung beautifully here by Klaus Mertens) is one of the soloists and has some of the oratorio's best ...