This album proved an eye opener, for certain things that I have always thought (or at least suspected) in regards to Handel’s writing for tenors showed them in blazing Technicolor here. One thing that you can always count on in any Handelian collection is a certain amount of vocal fireworks, brilliant displays for the castratos of the time, made doubly effective since so many of the leading roles were of the trouser variety. But the tenor voice in Handel’s mind was of a different nature than his soprano parts, and he reveals his thinking on this issue not only in the smoother, slower, and more concentrated music that he creates, but also for the dramatic impetus of the roles assigned to the voice itself.
There still remain curiosities about the practical nature of many of his attributions. For instance, why should Julius Caesar be given to a soprano voice while Samson a tenor? Both have enough drama and in-depth fortitude to withstand either voice type; but there seem to be inconsistencies in this choice. Samson’s battles are of a different nature than Caesar’s, and it is possible that Handel felt that the more declamatory and religious utterances of the former needed a greater weightiness than that afforded by the latter, but even here we are probably stretching the point. If gravity is all that is lacking, why not use a bass-baritone for the role? When all is said and done (and analyzed), Handel, like so many other successful composers bent on procuring a decent coin return on any of his works, wrote to his strengths, and in most cases this meant writing for those singers who were available to him that he knew and trusted. Samson and Caesar should be interchangeable in terms of vocal type—it should not matter what kind of voice is given to any character, aside from the considerations of other roles in the opera or Oratorio that may have inspired certain ensemble types or vocal contrasts.
But the tenor voice is something that attracted Handel most noticeably whenever the noted singer John Beard was available, which was pretty much all the time from the 1730s onward. Beard, who performed in Alceste, Samson, Semele, and Jephtha—and probably many more—was one of those many performer lights that so attracted artists like Handel, and inspired them to write scintillating, highly evocative and dramatic music to portray the characters and action.
To my ears Mark Padmore is such an artist, and Handel would have done very well had Padmore been transported to the eighteenth century. This collection of varied Handeliana shows what a serious and sensitive lyricist the composer is, and how careful he is to write affectingly and eloquently for the tenor voice, taking every consideration to give honestly felt, meltingly smooth lines that lie lightly on the voice without inducing undue strain. This is not to say that there are not difficulties; far from it. But if this album demonstrates anything it is that Handel treated the vocal range of the tenor voice in quite a different manner than the soprano, and his genius was able to wed vocal necessity with dramatic considerations to create a perfect vehicle of incomparable musical evocation. Many of these arias and scenes are quite lyrical, buttery smooth, and placing much emphasis on the singer’s ability to create dramatic tension from the marriage of words and music, and not just the music alone.
Manze and company are wholly attuned to what Padmore is trying to accomplish here, and the forces come off as perfectly in harmony with each other’s intent. You don’t get a chance to hear a Handel tenor collection like this too often, and the result is quite illuminating. Padmore’s vocalizing is seductive and alluring, and Handel lovers should be grateful. HM’s sound is like it always seems to be—terrific.
— Steven Ritter
