Handel goes Wild (2017)

Valer Sabadus (countertenor), Nuria Rial (soprano) & L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar

‘Barokinstrumenten en een jazzcombo smelten samen tot een intrigerend effect’, schreef BBC Music over Music for a while – Improvisations on Henry Purcell. Met Händel goes Wild pakt Christina Pluhar nu met haar L’Arpeggiata operaaria’s van Händel op vergelijkbare wijze aan. Sopraan Nuria Rial en countertenor Valer Sabadus zingen Händel fantastisch en ondertussen gaan de musici er met thema’s en baslijnen vandoor alsof het hier gaat om jazzstandards. En het werkt. Händel was werkelijk wild en zijn muziek swingt de pan uit.

With Händel Goes Wild Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata once again embark on some musical time travel, this time in the company of soprano Nuria Rial, countertenor Valer Sabadus and jazz clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi. The album features sumptuously reimagined versions of some of Handel’s most celebrated operatic arias. “All baroque composers used strict forms,” explains Christina Pluhar, “but those forms would also allow the singers and musicians to improvise and add ornament freely.” Highlighting the composer’s dynamism and temperament, she says: “Handel must have been pretty wild himself.”

George Frideric Handel now joins Purcell, Monteverdi and Cavalli on the list of composers who have inspired an album by Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata.

The title of this new album refers first and foremost to the imaginative treatment his music receives from L’Arpeggiata, but Christina Pluhar reminds us that “Handel must have been pretty wild himself,” quoting this famous anecdote: “At a rehearsal for his opera Ottone, when the celebrated soprano Francesca Cuzzoni refused to sing the aria ‘Falsa immagine’, he became so furious that he grabbed her round the waist and threatened to throw her out of the window.”

Fortunately, the ‘wildness’ on this album is purely pleasurable. Händel Goes Wild is in the beguiling vein of Music For A While – Improvisations on Henry Purcell, released by L’Arpeggiata on Erato in 2014. Praising that album, BBC Music Magazine wrote: “Long experienced in fusing Baroque with jazz-inspired performance styles, L'Arpeggiata's approach breathes new life into the Restoration composer, whose ground basses are akin to riffs, his melodies folk-like in their raw simplicity ... Baroque instruments and a jazz-style combo mix to intriguing effect

Handel:
 Alcina: Act 3 Sinfonia
 Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (from Solomon)
 Cara sposa (from Rinaldo)
 Lascia ch'io pianga (from Rinaldo)
 Mi lusinga il dolce affetto (from Alcina)
 Ombra mai fu (from Serse)
 Pena tiranna (from Amadigi)
 Piangerò la sorte mia (from Giulio Cesare)
 Semele: O, Sleep Why Dost Thou Leave Me?
 Semele: Where'er you walk
 Tu del ciel ministro eletto (Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno)
 Venti turbini (Rinaldo)
 Verdi prati (from Alcina)

Vivaldi:
 Concerto in G minor RV157

"Whether or not you like this kind of project, this one is expertly and beautifully done, with Handel’s lyrical greatness remaining plain for all to see."
Gramophone Magazine - October 2017

‘Barokinstrumenten en een jazzcombo smelten samen tot een intrigerend effect’, schreef BBC Music over Music for a while – Improvisations on Henry Purcell. Met Händel goes Wild pakt Christina Pluhar nu met haar L’Arpeggiata operaaria’s van Händel op vergelijkbare wijze aan. Sopraan Nuria Rial en countertenor Valer Sabadus zingen Händel fantastisch en ondertussen gaan de musici er met thema’s en baslijnen vandoor alsof het hier gaat om jazzstandards. En het werkt. Händel was werkelijk wild en zijn muziek swingt de pan uit.