HANDEL: Alexander’s Feast; Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day – Simone Kermes, soprano/ Virgil Hartinger, tenor/ Konstantin Wolff, bass/ Cologne Chamber Choir/ Collegium Cartusianum/ Peter Neumann, conductor – Carus Multichannel SACD 83.424 (2 discs), 135:34 **** [Distr. by Albany]:
This program presents a duplication of the concert actually given on November 22—St. Cecilia’s Day—1739. Alexander’s Feast is not an oratorio but rather a type of entertainment that is oratorio-like in style, but its neglect of typically biblical subjects renders it outside that arena. The work was originally written for the opening season of 1736 at Covent Garden where 1300 people were present, and has lost little of its appeal since that first overwhelmingly successful production. The piece is centered on a text by John Dryden that celebrated the various emotional aspects of music as applied to Alexander’s triumph over the Persians, cautiously moving in this epic narrative from pagan elements to a final triumph of Cecilia herself who appears as one who “drew an angel down”. The subtitle “The Power of Musick” exemplifies the appeal of art as a hero in disguise that exerts influence over people and subtly reveals the varied emotional states present in the text. It is a magnificent effort of the composer who is able to find some wondrous and highly apt sounds and effects designed to please his audience without playing down to them, so to speak.
But where the weakness of Alexander’s Feast is in its too sudden embrace of the Christian ethic by the late appearance of Cecilia, the Ode to St. Cecilia’s Day remedies that situation by providing us with music that responds to the very descriptive musical texts and leads us through the power of music to destroy the passions all the way to the trumpet at the Last Judgment. The work is meant to be an orchestral/choral showpiece and is successful on all fronts, offering a display for both that has rarely been seconded in any of Handel’s later (and most would say, greater) pieces. It too looms on the horizon as a piece that is immune to public disdain, and will remain one of his most popular.
These readings are fairly sedate for period instrument performances, exhibiting smoothness and heightened lyrical sensibility that goes against the grain of many historical performances that seem to glory in the shock element. I liked them very much and appreciate conductor Peter Neumann’s way with these formidable scores, placing each decision firmly at the door of interpretative essence first. The other Ode that I know of on SACD was reviewed to good effect by John Sunier here, and as I have that disc I must agree with him. The Italians on that excellently recorded ARTS disc offer a little more punch to the effort—as most of the Italian period performances do—but that doesn’t detract from the more effortless playing and communication found on this disc with Neumann and forces. Recommended then, as another valuable addition to the increasingly fertile Handel discography.
— Steven Ritter
