‘Hermann of the Cherusci’ and the Varus Battle found their way into the German founding myth a long time ago. Arminius, whose Teutons roundly defeated three of Varus’ legions, was already described as the ‘Liberator of Germania’ by Tacitus. In Handel’s Arminio, the liberation battle is only the background against which the characters come to terms with themes like honour, duty, obedience, love and freedom. Arminio premiered in the Covent Garden Theatre on January 12, 1737 but disappeared from the London stage after only six performances.

This edition of Handel’s Messiah is a landmark recording both for the Academy and in the history of the work, being both the first recording made with the Academy’s own chorus, and the first (and as far as we are aware, only) recording of the version used by Handel for the work’s 1743 London premiere. Sir Neville Marriner’s deliberate choice to break with the massed-choir treatments of the past was greeted enthusiastically by the public, selling over a quarter of a million copies in the first three years, and leading Fanfare’s Michael Carter to remark in 2010: “There have been many recordings of Messiah since this 1976 release and there will no doubt be many more to come, but few, if any, will match, let alone surpass, this of Marriner.”

Emma Kirkby always has been an excellent Handel singer, from her two 1985 recordings–Italian Cantatas with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (L'Oiseau Lyre) and German Arias with Charles Medlam and the London Baroque (EMI)–and 1987's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, again with the London Baroque (Harmonia Mundi) to this new, exemplary program of Latin motets. Kirkby retains a remarkably youthful sound, exhibiting all of her admired agility and intonational accuracy, but with more richness in the lower register than in her younger days.

During the later years of the seventeenth century in Italy the form of the solo cantata with basso continuo became popular. Extra voices with obbligato instruments were often added to the basic formula, but the alternating pattern of recitative and aria remained more or less constant. the majority of Handel's cantatas date from the first decade of the eighteenth century and, more specifically, to his period in Italy between 1706 and 1710. Three of those in the new issue belong to that period whilst the fourth, Mi palpita il cor, suggests Anthony Hicks—in its version for soprano, oboe and continuo—dates from Handel's first years in England. Only recently have two complete copies of Alpestre monte turned up and this performance is, I believe, the first commercially recorded one.

During his lifetime, Handel revisited his score of Israel in Egypt many times to create a more ‘audience friendly work’, meaning that by the early nineteenth century there were several versions available, often vastly truncated to satisfy the musical appetites of the day.

Handel arrived in Hamburg in 1703, aged eighteen. He spent four years in the city and wrote several works for the town's opera house. Hamburg opera was a rather eclectic beast at the time, drawing on Italian and French language and instrumental style alongside the native German. Handel fell happily into this genre; this CD brings together a selection of the delightful orchestral music (which tends to be in the French style) that Handel wrote there, some of it recorded for the first time.

No Handel opera is as enigmatic as Silla. His fourth London opera, it was composed in 1713 to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi, also the librettist of the composer s first great London triumph Rinaldo (1711). And that is just about the extent of any certainty on the subject. It might have been premiered in 1713 in London in a private concert at the Queen s Theatre, but even this remains unconfirmed. This is one of Handel s few historical operas, being concerned with Plutarch s account of the latter part of the life of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who after taking Rome became a tyrannical despot who murders his opponents, before suddenly retiring to his country estate to enjoy his leisure.

Handel’s beautiful, intimate settings of liturgical texts written for the First Duke of Chandos are among his less well-known choral works—and are proved by this second volume from Trinity also to be among his loveliest. They are a perfect example of the composer’s English style heard in Acis & Galatea and oratorios such as Judas Maccabaeus.

Handel wrote ‘Arresta il passo’ (which Hyperion has renamed after its hero and heroine) for Rome’s Arcadian Academy in 1708. A suitably pastoral cantata for two voices, strings and continuo, it depicts the shepherd Aminta’s wooing of the initially reluctant nymph Fillide in a series of charming arias (some of which Handel reused in Agrippina and Rinaldo).

This set is what early music or baroque opera purists might call politically incorrect. The orchestra at Venice's La Fenice is too big, the playing is Romantic, with plenty of rubato and not crisp, and very few of the singers get through the music as Handel wrote it or embellish it the way he wished. But it does feature Joan Sutherland at her most amazing. Her huge voice, pure tone, impeccable technique, seamless legato, and glorious ease are the definition of bel canto. While this two-CD release is not ideal, it does present Alcina in much of its loveliness.

The great Australian countertenor, Graham Pushee with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra directed by Paul Dyer, stuns us all in this program of favorite arias by Handel.

Handels Messiah is already very well-represented on the market with dozens of existing recordings and new productions appearing at regular intervals. Yet this is a very special version, carefully crafted, Halle Handel Edition in hand, by a Basel-based selection of fine vocal soloists and instrumentalists who have all graduated from the world-famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Under the fine direction of Daniela Dolci, singers Miriam Feuersinger, Flavio Ferri-Benedeti, Dino Luthy and Raitis Grigalis join the ensemble Musica Fiorita for a moving studio recording made in October 2015.

Jordi Savall's exemplary performance of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks is among the finest available on disc: refined and precise, but very big, with blood-stirring grandeur. This is just the kind of extroverted, rousing presentation that best highlights the music's open-air ceremonial function. Savall's Le Concert des Nations is essentially a chamber orchestra with double or triple winds, but the sound he elicits from the group is majestic and surprisingly powerful. The playing is crisp and the rhythmic articulation bracing, but the sound is never brash. In fact, more often than not it is seductively sensual, a heady integration of precision and supple, shapely phrasing. Handel left no authoritative edition of the score of Water Music and it has traditionally been divided into three suites, but Savall reorders the material into two suites, a decision that makes more sense in terms of key relationships and that sounds entirely satisfying.

'Serse' comes late in the Handel opera list, with only two more attempts at the form remaining. Adapted from the libretto originally prepared for Cavalli's 'Xerses' in 1655 (itself a great opera), 'Serse' remains true to its Venetian roots. The action, which is largely comic, moves fluidly through short arias, ariosos and ariettas. Serse is a parody of the self-important ruler; "Ombra mai fu,' possibly Handel's most famous setting of Italian words, is in fact a love song to a plane tree originally intended to be sung by a man who had been castrated. Irony does not go much deeper than this. The characters that surround Serse are an uncommonly varied lot with the plain-speaking Atalanta a particular joy.

One might think that with all of the attention that Handel’s music has received over the years and especially since the tercentenary of his birth in 1985, that no stone has been left unturned in the effort to accord the composer his due. Indeed, there have been revelatory and monumental cycles of his operas and oratorios—especially Messiah—as well as numerous releases of Music for the Royal Fireworks, Water Music, the Concerti grossi, ops. 3 and 6—the list goes on and on, almost ad nauseam. As with any composer, though, there are darker recesses in Handel’s œuvre that seemed to have attracted the interest of a multitude of dust bunnies, but few performers. This Hyperion recording, originally recorded in 1988 and released under the title Music for Royal Occasions, holds three such works specifically composed for English courtly festivities of various import between 1713 and 1736.