Handel – Acis and Galatea
Boston Early Music Festival; Paul O’Dette; Stephen Stubbs
CPO 777 877-2
There have been several fine recordings of Acis and Galatea in the recent past. I myself am especially fond of the recording conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with Norma Burrowes and the late Anthony Rolfe Johnson in the main parts (on Archiv). Still, this new recording is something else. It is fast-paced and light on its feet. The singing and the playing are exceptional. I especially enjoyed the tenor Jason McStoots, who sings Damon, the lovely oboe playing by Gonzalo X. Ruiz and the virtuoso sopranino recorder obbligato by Kathryn Montoya in Hush, ye pretty warbling quire! It was also a pleasure to hear our own Dominic Teresi, the principal bassoon of Tafelmusik.
The recording seeks to reconstruct the first performance of 1718 and uses not a choir in the modern sense of the word but a group of six singers, five of whom are also soloists. The minimum number of orchestral players needed is seven; this recording uses ten, presumably because an archlute, a theorbo and a double bass have been added. The recording includes the chorus Wretched lovers, which signals the arrival of the Cyclops Polyphemus and marks the shift from rural innocence to impending violence. Here the directors have not been altogether consistent as that chorus is a later addition and is generally thought to have been added in 1739.
The record also includes a substantial bonus in the cantata Sarei troppo felice (1707), beautifully sung by soprano Amanda Forsythe.
