Handel: Acis and Galatea.(Sound Recording Review)

[] LeBlanc; Bleeke, Molomot, Watson; Les Boreades, E. Milnes. Text and French translation. ATMA ACD 2 2302

Handels delightful masque has come down to us in several versions, and even a revision by Mozart continues to have a healthy life in the concert hall. Acis has also held up well to the many experiments in historically-informed performance to which it has been treated over the years, some of which are in evidence here.

The Montreal-based ensemble Les Boreades, under the direction of Eric Milnes, gives the work in the one-on-a-part configuration first popularized by Joshua Rifkin's Bach recordings. Only five singers--four soloists, who are joined in the choral pieces by an additional tenor--and n ine players are heard. (Handel may on occasion have used even fewer, with the recorder players doubling as oboists.) There are of course gains in clarity. On the other hand, the lack of textural contrast for the choral numbers is a real loss in a work of this size, especially when the choral music duplicates that of the soloists at the end of Part I. Accurate though it is, this choice of forces softens the dramatic shape. Could it have been a necessity for Handel, not a choice? But Acts tilts a bit more toward entertainment than toward music drama, and there is an undeniable charm to this sound.

Ornamentation is the soul of Baroque repertoire, and the Boreades players offer the full spectrum of possibilities. Sometimes there is little but an upward extension of the vocal melody in the last line of a da capo repeat; sometimes the exuberant first oboist passes the point of the practicable. On other recordings, the question of whether an ...