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Review
What a wonderful way this is to celebrate a significant new partnership: Richard Egarr's first recording as the newly appointed music director of the Academy of Ancient Music!and as Egarr points out in the notes, it's just possible that these Handel scores might have been played by the original Academy of Ancient Music, which when the Op. 3 Concerti Grossi were published in 1734, used to meet at The Crown and Anchor in the Strand in London. Of course, quite how they might have played them we don't know, but if it was with anything like this degree of colour, variety and imagination, then their audiences were lucky indeed. The pungent wind sonorities in the first Concerto Grosso with its warbling recorders and stentorian bassoons, make a delicious contrast to the rich strings and duetting oboes of the second. In the third concerto, Egarr adopts Handel's alternative for solo flute rather than oboe, and Rachel Brown's elegant playing justifies the decision.
The broader French baroque style of the fourth Concerto Grosso is very satisfying, with Egarr's harpsichord playing adding not just the expected stylish flourishes and ornaments, but also a real sense of drive and momentum. The fifth concerto's more operatic sense of drama is given full reign, with some deliciously dark colours, and the players relishing every harmonic twist and turn in the central slow movement. When it comes to the last concerto of the set, with a mere two movements, Egarr scratches his head for a moment, then seats himself at the organ to improvise a solo in the middle, and provide an explicit link with Handel's next publication: the Organ Concertos Op. 4. Then comes a final flourish: an earlier Handel Sonata, which is really a chamber violin concerto, full of Italianate touches, and led with panache by Pavlo Beznosiuk.
I can't think of anything that would improve this package: performances are stylish and beautifully polished. The recording is a beauty, in stereo or in surround if you buy the hybrid SACD option, and Egarr's notes are exemplary. Even the cover illustration of London's Regent Street at night feels spot on; it's only when you look in the booklet that you find out that it was actually painted in 1898!!
This recording is Disc Of The Week on Radio 3's CD Review --Andrew McGregor
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I purchased this as one of a number of pieces to be played at my daughter's civil wedding as a background piece. It is superb - soothing and calm but bright also. The sort of "feel good" music you can play in the car when in a traffic jam and it will transport you to another more pleasant place in your mind.
Lynne Park, Cheshire
Lynne Park, Cheshire
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Handel: Concerti Grossi, Op. 3; Sonata a 5
10 Oct 2007
Format:Audio CD
Richard Egarr's first recording with AAM, this first volume of an anticipated Handel cycle is swiftly -- and justifiably -- gathering accolades. Classics Today rated it 10/10, calling the disc a "terrific release," "superbly engineered and presented [...]. It doesn't get any better." This month, Gramophone magazine announced it as the 2007 Gramophone Award Winner in the Baroque Instrumental category, proclaiming "Egarr could not have hoped for a better way to begin his tenure." I agree. The playing is wonderful, Harmonia Mundi's recording is warm and vibrant, and Egarr's notes for the recording are a interesting and informative. For Handel fans like me, or lovers of Baroque music in general, this disc is a definite "buy."
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
exceptional
10 July 2007
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
The back cover of this release announces that it's the first recording made by the Academy of Ancient Music under their new director, Richard Egarr; and that it's the first in a projected series of Handel recordings. Well, it's a triumph in every way and I look forward to the next release. The playing by the AAM is solid and energetic, but not too energetic as it sometimes could be under Andrew Manze, whose own super-virtuoso flourishes occasionally teeter on the brink of excess. The music is so fresh-sounding that it sometimes seems almost improvised, as indeed some of it is -- Richard Egarr provides his own middle movement, a tasteful interlude for solo organ, for the delightful 6th Concerto.
The sound? Full, rich and dynamic. The lavishly produced package includes interesting liner notes by Richard Egarr. What else can I add?
The sound? Full, rich and dynamic. The lavishly produced package includes interesting liner notes by Richard Egarr. What else can I add?
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Handel for a New Generation of Listeners
1 Aug 2007
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Richard Egarr's new recording of Handel's Concerti Grossi opus 3 with the Academy of Ancient Music is a welcome addition to the existing catalog of Handel performances. We are told that Egarr and the AAM are in the process of be releasing additional new Handel recordings, and if this example is representative of the one's to come, we can only look forward to these with the greatest of expectations.
Handel is greatly known for his famous "Messiah," and is perhaps most revered as an outstanding oratorio writer, but to explore his orchestral works - as few of these as there may be - can be a true joy. It is rumored that Beethoven viewed Handel as the world's greatest composer, particularly being impressed with Handel's ability to do a lot musically with a very small set of instruments. While the Concerti Grossi don't necessarily fit into the description of "small" in terms of their instrumental support, Handel's creative genius bursts forth in both the opus 3 (and even more so in the magnum opus 6). To know these pieces is probably to love them, and one can find oneself endlessly despaired that Handel did not develop more of these extraordinary pieces.
The Academy of Ancient Music, along with its memorable association with Christopher Hogwood, brought the world to understand anew the meaning of "original instruments" beginning in the 1980's. Scores and scores of these works were released by Hogwood and the AAM, most to critical acclaim. There is no question that this effort revolutionized our understanding of classical music, because it helped us to understand and differentiate what we hear in today's modern orchestral "sound" from what the composers heard (and intended) when they originally wrote their pieces. One criticism of the movement, however, has been that some of these performances could sound shrill, and perhaps a touch harsh, and that if restoring the original instrument format resulted in such characteristics, perhaps we should just keep quiet and enjoy the fuller sonority and richness of the modern instrument format. Egarr's and the AAM's recent Handel entry completely dashes this concern. The music is full, rich, and not harsh. We can enjoy Handel's music in a way that Handel intended, but still have a "smooth" (for lack of a better, more technical, term) sound that is akin to the smoothest of modern instrument performances.
This is why one should look forward to the new recordings promised to come out in this series. It is an exciting thing to see this new focus on Handel's great music, and this is a disc that the Handel listener should richly enjoy. The price is quite steep, but if one considers this is the price we pay for opening up a whole new line of inquiry into the world of Handel, it really can be justified, and perhaps, encouraged. Congratulations both to Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music for this great new Handel entry.
Handel is greatly known for his famous "Messiah," and is perhaps most revered as an outstanding oratorio writer, but to explore his orchestral works - as few of these as there may be - can be a true joy. It is rumored that Beethoven viewed Handel as the world's greatest composer, particularly being impressed with Handel's ability to do a lot musically with a very small set of instruments. While the Concerti Grossi don't necessarily fit into the description of "small" in terms of their instrumental support, Handel's creative genius bursts forth in both the opus 3 (and even more so in the magnum opus 6). To know these pieces is probably to love them, and one can find oneself endlessly despaired that Handel did not develop more of these extraordinary pieces.
The Academy of Ancient Music, along with its memorable association with Christopher Hogwood, brought the world to understand anew the meaning of "original instruments" beginning in the 1980's. Scores and scores of these works were released by Hogwood and the AAM, most to critical acclaim. There is no question that this effort revolutionized our understanding of classical music, because it helped us to understand and differentiate what we hear in today's modern orchestral "sound" from what the composers heard (and intended) when they originally wrote their pieces. One criticism of the movement, however, has been that some of these performances could sound shrill, and perhaps a touch harsh, and that if restoring the original instrument format resulted in such characteristics, perhaps we should just keep quiet and enjoy the fuller sonority and richness of the modern instrument format. Egarr's and the AAM's recent Handel entry completely dashes this concern. The music is full, rich, and not harsh. We can enjoy Handel's music in a way that Handel intended, but still have a "smooth" (for lack of a better, more technical, term) sound that is akin to the smoothest of modern instrument performances.
This is why one should look forward to the new recordings promised to come out in this series. It is an exciting thing to see this new focus on Handel's great music, and this is a disc that the Handel listener should richly enjoy. The price is quite steep, but if one considers this is the price we pay for opening up a whole new line of inquiry into the world of Handel, it really can be justified, and perhaps, encouraged. Congratulations both to Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music for this great new Handel entry.
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