You could say that Rome was the making of Handel. Even if the youthful works he wrote there aren’t now among his best known, they show him beginning to create the kind of complex, involving and contradictory characters that would light up his later operas. Three of his cantatas here get the best of advocacy from the Dunedin Consort, conducted by John Butt.
This is effectively a debut recital recording for the soprano Nardus Williams, and she is outstanding. In Ero e Leandro, as Hero confronted with the body of her drowned lover, she pours out grief with a fierce immediacy, her voice giving the impression that it’s about to come unmoored and yet remaining absolutely, thrillingly secure. Tra le Fiamme – a largely cheery, gently moralising meditation on Daedalus and Icarus – has Handel turning up the colour in accompaniments that vividly suggest the burr of moths singeing their wings or the aerial cartwheels of Icarus falling from the sky. Armida Abbandonata is another study of a conflicted heroine, rivetingly brought to life. The Dunedin Consort sign off with the closing aria from Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, a rapt number in which Williams sounds heart-stoppingly lovely.
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