Review: Marriner's Decca Handel Recordings--A Feast for the Ears
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 เม.ย. 2024
- Marriner's Handel recordings for Argo/Decca include some of his finest work, and there are a lot of them. In this 19-disc set, you get three major vocal pieces (Messiah, Jephtha, Acis and Galatea) as well as all of the important orchestral suites and concertos, plus many other works both familiar and less so. It's a must-have for all Handelians (assuming you don't have already).
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Ha ha ha ! The Queen of Sheba eventually does leave but only after an aria , recitative and duet depending on which edition you are using. Presumably she is so overawed by ' the splendours she has seen and the wisdom thou hast taught' that she decides to disappear quickly and quietly from the scene.🙂Perhaps she feels she can't compete with her own advanced publicity after all the fuss made about her arrival by Handel.
Seriously though , thank you so much for bringing this Sir Neville Marriner set to our attention. I don't think his recordings get that much air time on the radio these days and it is possible that a generation has now grown up not knowing much about his work. Such a fine musician and conductor. He always cast his recordings so well , no weak links.
It was nice to hear mention of some of his casts and collaborators. Alfreda Hodgson was a wonderful singer and a very nice lady indeed who passed away much too young. I met her when I was a student singing in some BBC concerts. I am sure she would have made a great contribution to teaching if the time had been allowed her. Anthony Rolfe Johnson , greatly missed, but Jill Gomez Carnegy , Countess of Northesk still with us I'm glad to say.
Thanks for well-timed vid, one week before Neville Marriner’s 100th birthday. On that day, 15 April, we’ll be doing a celebratory concert in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields (where else?) including a concerto grosso by, of course, Handel.
"The Departure of The Queen of Sheba"--oh, where is Peter Schickele when we need him now?! 😢(BTW, I just googled his name to make sure I remembered the spelling, and up popped a photo of him sitting on the counter in Horn & Hardart. 😅
Yes, Dave! Well said: This is really cool! Thank you, sir! I love what you do here for all of us!
Make us buy more CDs 😮😂
Oh dear Dave! The Queen of Sheba always arriving and never leaving. I nearly spilt my coffee I was laughing so much. I love your reviews when you inject humour into them. And, yes notwithstanding all the HIP stuff out there if you really want to enjoy Handel this is the way to listen to him. I think only Trevor Pinnock comes near when it comes to enjoying so called authentic performances of Handel. I'm afraid my credit card is about to take another hit.
Delighted to see this Marriner/Handel box. Decca reissued these gradually on CD in the 1990's, and I wasted no time to obtain them. Then about a dozen years ago they reappeared (minus "Jephtha" and the ballet music) in a "Handel Masterworks"edition from Decca, prompted probably by competition from Brilliant Classics' Handel editions. The Decca edition was truly representative, containing as it did almost all of the composer's orchestral music, a critical mass of his chamber music, and most of the important odes and oratorios (no operas, though). If that collection is still around, it would make a splendid "basic library edition" for anyone coming to Handel for the first time. As for Marriner's Op. 6 Concerti Grossi, I suspect they will be featured again as a "reference recording." They certainly deserve that status. Interestingly, the St. Martin's Academy recorded Opus 6 again in the early digital era with Iona Brown directing. Those performances are, if anything, even finer than Marriner's traversal, though they have long since disappeared from circulation. Thanks, Dave, for promoting this new Handel box, which deserves all the praise you have given it.
Händel's op. 3 and 6 under the direction of Iona Brown are now avalilable from Hänssler Classics.
@@hans-jurgengrabbe6540 Good news! Thanks for the information.
Ah! Another "must have" box... Hopefully they will keep them available for at least a week...
Marriner/ASMF's recording of Handel's Concerti grossi Op. 6 is THE recording to beat. A beautiful performance. Not sure if it would be considered the reference recording, but either way it remains incredible.
Absolutely. I compared the first concerto with Ton Koopman's period instrument version. Which one to prefer was obvious. Marriner is brilliant and very stylish.
Yup! I've yet to find a period instrument one that rises above merely "good." None amaze and astound like Marriner/ASMF.
I love that, like the big AOSMITF Anniversary box, the original album art is presented on each sleeve. Despite the demise of vinyl (or resurgence?) this aspect of music production is still a selling point (for me)! Thx. 🙂
Argo managed to squeeze the Water Music/Royal Fireworks on a single LP which saved me a lot of money in my student days!
Marriner's really is one of the best Messiahs ever recorded.
I've been listening to Marriner's Mozart divertimenti recently with such great pleasure. The LP of No. 17 K. 334 has been uploaded to TH-cam, but it seems never to have been released on CD. I prefer it even to Végh in its perfect orchestral playing and well-judged symmetry. Marriner is somehow still underrated.
I miss my stereo, trying to buy new one. I had few years of listening in headphones, because of lack of interest, overall in music. I miss the ambience of space with good speakers with feedback acoustics and the ability of the mind to wander while the music clearly try to have your attention.
I have a question. I love these recordings and grew up with them. So my understanding was that the two menuet last movements in the fireworks were supposed to be put together. It’s so cohesive the way Marriner did it. Then as I started listening to other recordings, I was shocked and disappointed that every other recording that I have since heard has separated the two menuets. So my question is this: What did Handel actually write? Did Marriner stick them together himself? What is going on???
Do you know if any of these discs were remastered?
No.
Good to see the Marriner's Argo/Decca Messiah refreshed, a performance I've always loved since I first borrowed the blue velvet covered 2lp boxset from my local library (those were the days when a recording was deemed worthy of such luxury packaging!). Bit of trivia, but interesting as there was talk of period performance people yet to come to the fore, the performance edition used here was prepared by Christopher Hogwood, who I think also played the harpsichord continuo part (maybe wrong).
Actually, as an aside, I have a period instrument recording of the Water Music from 1971 (Deutsch Harmonia Mundi) with Collegium Aureum, which was one of my first exposures to PIP - very good it is too. Be Interesting to know what were the earliest PIP recordings?