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Handel: Gideon/Frankfurt Baroque

David Vernier

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Handel was dead, and apparently the public couldn’t get enough of his music, so his assistant John Christopher Smith (“the younger”) obliged his fans by cobbling “oratorios” such as this one from existing works, set to new words and telling previously untold stories in Handelian style. What this disc’s outer packaging doesn’t tell us is that nearly 70 percent of the arias, recitatives, and choruses (not to mention the overture) in this three-part, two-and-one-half-hour production are not by Handel but are taken from Smith’s own works, primarily his 1762 oratorio The Feast of Darius. And what there is of Handel varies from excerpts from obscure Italian cantatas to the opera Rodrigo (one aria), several of the first-rate Neun deutsche Arien, and some terrific choruses from the Dixit Dominus and Laudate pueri Dominum in D major.

So, how much you appreciate this pasticcio will depend on how desperate you are to have every scrap of Handelia–or is it Handeliabilia?–or how curious you are to see how many of these works you can identify in this altered context, or how much you care about the music of John Christopher Smith (the younger). Of course there’s some fine music here, and not all of it by Handel. Highlights include several of Smith’s arias and choruses–such as the lovely “May kind angels still attend thee” (Disc 1, track 25) and the chorus that concludes Part 1, “Hail, enlivener of our cause!” The aria that opens Part 2 (“How sweet, the rose”) isn’t too shabby either, but as so often happens as we listen to this extended and somewhat random compilation, as quickly as we begin to appreciate Smith’s inventiveness, we hear one of Handel’s more savvy, sophisticated entries–and we wonder why we’re listening to this when we could just pull out the real Dixit Dominus or some other more compelling work that Handel actually wrote–a luxury that those 18th-century Londoners didn’t have.

The singers are variable in quality–and even the better ones are inconsistent from aria to recit to aria–and the chorus takes to its task with enthusiasm, even though sometimes with less than true intonation. Sopranos Barbara Hannigan and Nicola Wemyss and tenor Knut Schoch are best; countertenor David Cordier and soprano Linda Perillo are marginally acceptable, lacking the fluid technique and range of expression expected of today’s better baroque soloists. While all of the soloists have their shining moments, there’s nothing here that’s especially impressive either. The Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra plays very well, with requisite energy and precision under Joachim Carlos Martini, who does as well with this material as can be expected. This is for Handel completists and very curious 18th-century oratorians (or is it oratoriologists?).


Recording Details:

GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL - Gideon (oratorio compiled with substantial additions by John Christopher Smith)

  • Record Label: Naxos - 8.557312-13
  • Medium: CD

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