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Handel: Acis and Galatea / Christie, Daneman, Petibon, et al
(CD, 1999)
Primary Artist: Sophie Daneman
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Format: CD
Sep 1999
2 Discs
Record Label: Erato (USA)
Recording Type: Studio
UPC: 639842550529 |
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Details
Album Notes
This disc recieved the 2000 Gramophone magazine award for "Best
Baroque Vocal Recording."
George Frideric Handel's 'Acis and Galatea' is one of the composer's most popular works, often excerpted for concerts and recordings. It is rare, however, to hear it in its entirety, or in the manner Handel intended it. In its day, this musical retelling of a Sicilian myth has been described as an opera, pastoral, bucolic poem, masque, and "musical entertainment." In every incarnation, it is a beautiful, intimate, and delicate masterpiece.
Written for a small group of singers, the two-act work is not structured as a full opera. Nevertheless, the music achieves much the same effect. Soprano Sophie Daneman and tenor Paul Agnew propel the drama with touching performances. Les Arts Florissants, the 14-piece orchestra providing accompaniment, includes some instrumentation not normally found in an operatic situation. This unique nature of this recording will have an appeal stretching beyond opera aficionados.
Reviews:
Fanfare (1-2/00, pp.254-255) - "...[William Christie's] always provocative and at the same time musically and dramatically satisfying direction results in a performance as good as any version either extant of obsolete..."
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