On This Recording

Reviews:

“turning period arrangements of Handel opera hits into searingly gorgeous instrumental music.… Making such creations fizz is no easy task, requiring as it does a three-fold virtuosity in composition, execution and extemporization, but this recording consistently success. An incandescent presence [Rachel] Brown deploys he invention, and the particular qualities of the traverse flute to create a music wholly her own.… Equally fascinating is [Adrian] Butterfield’s one-to-a-part version of Handel’s Sonata a 5 in B-flat major (HWV 288); the shading and textures he brings to his line, and the Corellian lashings which he and the others happy to their parts, are their invention. Silas Wollaston bends Handel’s harpsichord version of ‘Ombra cara’ into a revelatory excursus: under Wollston’s fingers the aria becomes an intricately voiced, delicately timed, soul-baring almost-sonata, as if this were the music Handel first imagined before being forced to submit to the exigencies of opera seria. By restoring the role of composer to its performers, this project shows period practice coming into its own.” —Berta Joncus, BBC Music Magazine ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️